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THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

• AND 

THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 1 

The Origin of the Russian State and Na- 
tion. The Tartar-Mongols. Principality 
OF Moscow. The Unity of Russia. Isola- 
tion. The Aim of Russian Diplomacy. 

THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA IN EUROPE. 25 

Peter the Great. Poland. The Eastern 
Question. Latin and Greek Churches. 
Catherine the Great. Turkish Wars. 
Greek Independence. Crimean War. The 
Balkan States. Nihilism, Results of 
European Wars. Nicholas II. 

THE SOUTHWARD EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

IN ASIA 57 

An Asiatic Power. Wars and Treaties 
with Persia. A Way to the Indian Ocean. 
In the Caucasus. Paramount in Persia. 

FURTHER CONQUESTS 68 

Expansion towards India. Napoleon. 
The Conquest OF THE Khans. In Afghan- 
istan. The " Key of the Indies." In 
Touch with India. Abyssinia. British 
Over-Confidence. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA IN THE FAR 

EAST 90 

The Opening of Siberia. Value of Siberia. 
Chinese Wars. Settlements on the 
Pacific. Chinese Cessions. Vladivostock. 
Russian Influence at Pekin 

COREA 102 

The China-Japan War. Interference of 
Russia. Conflict with Japanese Inter- 
ests. Russia's Gain. 

CHINA 108 

Russian Concessions. Port Arthur. Rail- 
ways. Loans. Corea. Germany. Great 
Britain. The United States. 

THE MEANS AND METHODS OF RUSSIAN 

EXPANSION 116 

Fruits of Diplomacy. Absolutism of 
Russian Government. An Enlightened 
Despotism. "^ Russian Colonists. Race 
Characteristics. Religion. Population. 
Franco - Russian Alliance. From the 
Baltic to the Pacific. 

THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE: A Psychological 

Study 139 

I. Race and Teimperament. II. General 
Psychology. III. Sentiment. IV. Intel- 
lect. V. Politics. VI. Present State 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA. 

The Origin of the Russian State and Nation — - 
The Tartar-Mongols — Principality of Moscow 
— The Unity of Russia — Isolation — The Aim of 
Russian Diplomacy. 

We fail to discover, however far back we 
go towards the beginnings of the Russian 
State, any indication that this was ever des- 
tined to become a maritime power. In the 
ninth centm-y, the Slavic tribes that were 
to form the first political organization desig- 
nated by the name Russian, — the Slavo- 
Russian tribes, — occupied a territory securely 
shut in on the west, by the Poles and the 
Lithuanians; on the north, by the Finnish 
tribes, the Livonians, the Tchudis, and the 
Ingrians; on the east, Finnish tribes again, 
the Vesi, the Merians, the Muromians, and 
two Turkish tribes, the Meshtcheraks and 
the Khazars, that occupied all the northern 

1 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

coast of the Black Sea; allowing but a single 
one of the Slavo-Russian peoples to hold a 
position upon its shores. Except at this 
point, these Slavo-Russian tribes nowhere 
had access to the coast. The shores of the 
White Sea and the Arctic Ocean were Fin- 
nish; those of the Baltic, Finnish or Scan- 
dinavian; those of the Black Sea were held 
by the Khazars, the Caucasian tribes, the 
Byzantine Empire, and the Bulgarians, a 
Finnish tribe that had imposed its name and 
sovereignty upon a certain number of Slavic 
tribes. 

In the East and North, the Slavs were not 
to be found even in those regions where 
afterwards rose the Russian capitals, Mos- 
cow and St. Petersburg. Beyond began those 
immense spaces that stretch away into the 
depths of Central Asia, and even to the Pacific 
Ocean, spaces peopled with Finnish and 
Turkish tribes, and other branches of the 
Uralo-Altaic family. Then, still further east, 

2 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

were to be found certain peoples of the 
yellow race. 

To speak now only of the Russia of Europe, 
how did the Slavo-Russians, who in the ninth 
century held scarcely a fifth part of their 
present territory, succeed in securing pos- 
session of it all? A two-fold change came 
about during the centuries. On the one 
hand, the Slavo-Russians, very venturesome in 
disposition, following, at first, the course 
of the rivers and their tributaries, spread 
out over the vast plains that stretch away to 
the Ural Mountains; founding everywhere 
cities, villages, and markets right in the midst 
of the territory of the aboriginal tribes. On 
the other hand, they absorbed the greater 
part of those tribes, and imposed upon them 
their language, religion, and even their man- 
ners and customs. A double colonization, 
therefore, took place, a colonization of the soil 
and a colonization of the native. The ancient 
Uralo- Altaic tribes, subjugated or absorbed 

3 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

by the Russians, has disappeared from the 
map of the empire. There persist still only 
some scattered remnants of them, surrounded 
by men of Russian race and speech, and 
destined soon to disappear. These aborigines 
are to be foimd in fairly compact groups only 
in those places where the severity of the climate, 
the barren character of the soil, the thick- 
ness of the forest, and the desert steppes 
check Russian civilization, an ethnographical 
medley, moreover, occupying only a very small 
and indifferently valuable part of the Euro- 
pean Russia of to-day.' 

Thus the primitive tribes of the Slavo- 
Russians formed an agglomeration which was 
everywhere well-nigh entirely shut off from 
any sea. This had a character essentially 
continental; the population was wholly agri- 

(0 Thus the Suomi, the Karelia and the Laplanders 
in Finland; the Zyrians and the Permians, in the 
northeast; the Tcheremisa, the Mordva, the Votiaki, 
the Meshtcheraks, and the Bashkirs on the river Volga, 
or between the Volga and the Ural Mountains and river. 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

cultural in character, and, except as fleets 
of light boats descended the Dnieper in the 
tenth century to harass Constantinople and 
to commit piracy on the Byzantine shores 
of the Black Sea, there was nothing to indi- 
cate that it would one day come forth as a 
maritime power. 

The Russia of the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries was scarcely European. She was 
bound to Europe only by her form of relig- 
ion, and even that, borrowed from Byzantine, 
was an Oriental, an almost Asiatic form of 
Christianity. When there came about in the 
eleventh century the rupture between the 
Latin and Catholic Church of the West, 
and the Greek and Orthodox Church of 
the East, a still higher barrier was raised 
between the two parts of Europe. To the 
Western Christians, the Greeks and the peo- 
ples that they had evangelized, the Bulgar- 
ians, the Servians, the Moldavo-Wallachians, 
and the Russians, were only schismatics. 

5 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

Now, while the Catholic peoples of the West, 
thanks to more favorable historical circum- 
stances, began to take shape as powerful 
nations in which an already well-advanced 
civilization went on developing, the schismatic 
peoples of Eastern Europe, assailed by suc- 
cessive invasions, from Asia, and after having 
long served as a living bulwark against bar- 
barism for ungrateful Europe, were checked 
in their historic evolution, and fell one after 
the other into servitude to pagan Mongols 
or Mohammedan Turks. 

The country where the Slavo-Russians first 
established themselves was only a prolonga- 
tion of the great plains which, scarcely broken 
by the Ural Mountains, extend to Behring's 
Sea, Okhotsk Sea, and the Sea of Japan. 
Geographically, topographically, this prim- 
itive Russia was already Asiatic. Just as the 
winds from Asia swept unhindered all this 
immense plain, so could the migration of 
peoples and invading expeditions, at times 

6 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 



originating near the Great Wall of China, 
pour unchecked over the Russian plains as 
far as the Carpathian Mountains and the 
Vistula. 

One of those revolutions, so frequent among 
the nomadic tribes of Asia, brought together 
from 1154 to 1227 under the blue banner of 
Temuchin, called Jenghis Khan, numerous 
tribes of shepherds and mounted nomads. 
They adopted as their collective name that 
of the Tartar-Mongols. At their head "the 
Inflexible Emperor," ^Hhe Son of Heaven," 
conquered Manchuria, the kingdom of Tan- 
gut, North China, Turkestan, and Great 
Bokhara, and founded an empire which 
extended from the Pacific to the Ural Moimtains. 
Under the successors of Jenghis Khan, these 
mounted hordes, maddened by the fury of 
war and conquest, crossed into Europe, fell 
upon Russia, then divided into numerous 
principalities, carried the capital cities by 
assault, annihilated, one after the other, the 

7 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

armies of foot and horse sent against them, 
and in 1240 converted all Russia into a mere 
province of the Mongol Empire. The Russian 
princes and the chieftains of the Finnish tribes 
became vassals of the Great Khan/ who held 
his court on the banks of the Onon, an affluent 
of the Amur, or at Karakorum on the Orkhon, 
a stream emptying into Lake Baikal. They 
were also more directly the vassals of one of 
his vassals, the Khan of the Golden Horde, 
who was stationed at Sarai on the lower Volga. 
At this period the Tartar-Mongols, among 
whom Mohamimedanism was disseminated 
until about 1272, were still Buddhists, Sham- 
anists, or fetich worshippers; at heart very 
indifferent in matters of religion, and strangers 
to any thought of propagandism or of intoler- 
ance. They, therefore, . left the Russians in 
undisturbed possession of their religion, their 

(0 Consult Howorth, History of the Mongols, London 
1876. Wolff, Geschichte der Mongolen, Breslau, 1872. 
L^on Cahun, Introduction a Vhistoire de VAsie, Paris, 
1896. 

8 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

laws, and their own princely dynasties. They 
merely exacted' tribute, and, in certain contin- 
gencies, military service; and every new Russian 
prince must go to receive his investiture either 
at Sarai, or even by a journey that would 
occupy years, at the court of the Great Khan. 
There they were compelled to prostrate them- 
selves at the foot of his throne, to defend them- 
selves against the accusations of enemies, or 
of their Russian rivals; and the Khan disposed 
of their heads as of their crowns. Many Russian 
princes were executed before his eyes. Some 
among these, the Russian Church honors as 
martyrs. 

Among the Russian princes who went there 
to prostrate themselves before the Horde were 
those who had founded round about a little 
market-town, the name of which is met with 
for the first time in 1147, a new principality, 
that of Moscow, one of the most insignificant 
of the Russian states of that period. It was 
established in the midst of a Finnish country, 

9 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

among the Muromians. It formed, therefore, 
a colony of primitive Russia. The princes 
of Moscow knew how to turn to their own 
advantage the Mongol yoke that weighed on 
all Russia. They were more adroit than the 
others in flattering the common master and 
the agents that represented him in Russia. 
One of them, George (1303-1325), even married 
a Tartar princess. In their struggles against 
other Russian princes, they alway carried the 
controversy to the court of the Khan, who 
almost always decided in their favor, and sent 
them away with the heads of their rivals. They 
secured from the Khan the privilege of collecting 
the tribute, not only from their own subjects, 
but from the other princes of Russia. This 
function as tribute collector for the Khan 
raised them above all their equals; and the 
more humble vassals of the barbarians they 
showed themselves to be, the better did they 
establish their suzerainty over the other Chris- 
tian states. They succeeded thus in building 

10 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

up a powerful state, which was called the ''Great 
PrincipaUty'' of Moscow. When they felt 
themselves to be strong enough, and perceived 
that the Mongol Empire had grown sufficiently 
weak through internal dissension and divisions 
to warrant the attempt, they turned against 
the barbarians the power that they owed to 
them. In 1380, the Grand Prince Dmitri, 
having refused payment of tribute, defeated 
Mamai, the Khan of the Golden Horde, at 
Kulikovo on the Don. But the Mongols were 
not yet as weak as Dmitri Donskoi (hero of 
the Don) had thought. Tamerlane, or Timur- 
Leng, had just conquered Tiu-kestan, Persia 
Asia Minor, and North Hindustan. One of 
his lieutenants, Tokhtamysh, having vainly 
summoned the Grand Prince, Dmitri, to appear 
before him, marched against Moscow, captured 
the city and its Kremlin, sacked the other 
cities of the principality, and everywhere 
reestablished Asiatic supremacy. Nevertheless, 
the Mongol yoke was not to survive long the 

11 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

heroic effort made at Kulikovo. The great 
barbarian empires founded by Asiatic conquerors 
quickly fall to pieces. This historical law 
was verified in the Empire of Tamerlane, as 
in that of Jenghis Khan. Towards the end 
of the fifteenth century, the Mongol Empire 
of Asia was divided in the Mongol Empire 
of China, the Mongol Empire of India, the 
Mongol Kingdom of Persia, and a large mmiber 
of khanates in Turkestan and Siberia; and all 
those states were scarcely any longer Mongol 
save in name. In Russia itself, the Golden 
Horde was broken up. From its debris were 
formed the czarate of Kazan on the middle 
Volga, the khanate, or czarate, of Sarai, or 
Astrakhan, on the lower Volga, the horde of 
the Nogais, and the khanate of the Crimea. 
In 1476, Akhmed, the Khan of Sarai, sent a 
demand for tribute to the Grand Prince of 
Moscow, Ivan the Great. Ivan put the ambass- 
adors to death. Four years later, the Khan 
Akhmed marched upon Moscow with a large 

12 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

army. Near the rivers Oka and Ugra he met 
the army of Ivan the Great; but neither of 
the adversaries dared force the passage of 
the two rivers. They remained there several 
days exchanging insults and darts from the 
opposite shores. Then a panic simultaneously 
arose in both armies; the one fleeing in the 
direction of Moscow, the other in the direction 
of Sarai. It was in this bloodless, inglorious way 
that the Mongol power in Russia came to an end. 
The Mongol yoke had continued two hundred 
and fifty-six years (1224-1480). It left in 
Russia traces that were for a long time ineffac- 
able. Before the Tartar conquest, the power 
of a Russian prince was founded upon Euro- 
pean origins. It recalled the patriarchal author- 
ity of the old-time chieftains of the Slavo- 
Russian tribes; the martial authority of the 
heads of the Scandinavian or Variagian clans, 
like Rorik and other Variagian chiefs, called 
into Russia, it is said, by the Slavs; and the 
authority, at once civil and religious, of the 

13 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

Byzantine-Roman emperors, whom the succes- 
sors of Rorik, Hke all the barbarian chieftains 
of Eastern Em-ope, hked to take as models. 
After the Tartar conquest, on the contrary, 
the Russian princes, and especially the Grand 
Princes of Moscow, selected as prototypes of 
their own authority the Khans and Great 
Khans with their autocratic power, — coarse, 
irresponsible, Asiatic. From that time forward, 
they treated their vassals as they themselves 
had been treated by the Khans. Between the 
Grand Prince and his vassals, and between these 
and the peasants, the relations were those of 
brutal masters and trembling slaves. The sover- 
eign of Moscow did not differ from a Mongol 
Khan, from a Persian Shah, or from an Osmanli 
Sultan, save as he professed the orthodox reli- 
gion. He was a sort of a Christian Grand Turk. 
When the title of Grand Prince seemed to him 
unworthy of his increased power, the title that 
his ambition chose was none of those that the 
Christian rulers of the West then bore; it was 

14 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

the one which the Khans of Siberia, of Kazan, 
or of Astrakhan had arrogated; it was the title 
of Czar, which, of course, has not any etymo- 
logical connection with that of Csesar, a fiction 
invented very much later. Such was the title 
that the heir of the Grand Princes of Moscow, 
Ivan the Terrible, solemnly took in 1547. 
Many other facts attest the predominance of 
Asiatic influences over the Russia of the six- 
teenth century. The costumes of the Czar of 
Moscow and of the other great lords, the princes 
and boyars, were Asiatic; Asiatic was the servile 
etiquette of the court; touching with the brow 
the foot of the throne, and the humble formulas 
in which the highest personages declared them- 
selves to be slaves; Asiatic was the seclusion of 
the women in the terem, which was a Russian 
harem ;^ Asiatic was the equipment of the royal 

(1) However, it is proper to call attention to the fact 
that the servile character of the court etiquette may 
also have been borrowed from Byzantium, and that 
the Russian terem may have had its original in the 
gynsecium of the Greeks. 

lo 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

cavalry with their high saddles and short stir- 
rups; their boots with the toe in the form of an 
upturned crescent; their armor reminding one 
of the Chinese and Japanese; their curved 
swords, their bows and quivers, and their head- 
dress, which resembled a turban surmounted by 
an aigrette. All this oriental apparel was to 
continue in vogue imtil the time when Peter the 
Great, with the violent measures of an Asiatic 
despot, forcibly introduced into Russia the 
short clothing of the West, — '^German dress,'' 
that is, European. With this change in cos- 
tume, he also brought in the fashion of shaving 
the face; the holding of social gatherings, which 
the recluses of the terem were compelled to 
attend; the etiquette of the Christian courts; 
the formulary of the German bureaucracy, and 
the imiforms, equipments, and tactics of the 
armies of the West 

While Russia was still groaning under the 
Mongol yoke, the Grand Princes of Moscow, 
utilizing their servitude as an instrument of 

16 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

power, caused the other princes to bow before 
the terror of the Mongol, and brought about 
'Hhe consoUdation of the Russian territory,'' 
that is to say, they founded the unity of Russia. 
When the family line of the Grand Princes and 
Czars of Moscow died out in 1598, and when 
there began for Russia 'Hhose troublous times 
(smoutndie Vr^mia)/' which the accession of the 
Romanofs brought to an end in 1613, the czar- 
ate of Moscow was already a very powerful 
state. 

In the North especially, by the annexation of 
the territories of the ancient republics of Nov- 
gorod and Pskof , the Muscovite supremacy was 
extended to the White Sea and the Arctic 
Ocean. On the west, in a series of wars against 
the Lithuanians and the Poles to ^'recover" 
from them Russian territory which they had 
formerly conquered, the Moscow czarate had 
carried its power beyond Pskof and Lake Pei'pus, 
and had reached the Dnieper at Kiev and 
Smolensk. In the South, it had reached 

17 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

neither the Black Sea nor the Sea of Azov, 
from which it was separated by the Ukraine 
that still belonged to the Poles, by a republic 
of adventurers and pirates called the Zaporo- 
vians, by the khanate of the Crimean Tartars, 
by the camping-grounds of the Nogaian Tar- 
tars, and, finally, by the maritime power of the 
Ottomans on the Euxine. Eastward, Russian 
conquest and colonization had made great 
advances. The uniting of the old territories of 
Novgorod, and the annexation of those of the 
republic of Viatka, brought the Muscovite dom- 
ination to the Ural Mountains. The conquest 
of the czarate of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible, 
in 1552, gave him all the region of the middle 
Volga, and the conquest of the czarate of 
Astrakhan, two years later, placed in his power 
all the lower Volga country, with a part of the 
coast of the Caspian Sea. Finally, the con- 
quest of the khanate of Sibir, between the years 
1579-1584, by the Cossack Irmak, carried 
the Russian eagles beyond the Urals, and 

18 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

opened before them the immensities of 
Siberia. 

But the more extensive the Muscovite 
Empire became, the more it suffered from not 
having access to any sea which was all the year 
free from ice, or which would afford an outlet to 
the ocean. The Harbors of the White Sea were 
closed with ice eight months of the year; the 
Caspian Sea is only a great lake without an outlet. 
To reach the Baltic Sea, it would be necessary to 
battle against the Germans, the Poles, and the 
Swedes, the masters of all its shores. To gain 
access to the Black Sea, there were, again, the 
Poles to be fought, as well as the Tartars, the 
Zaporovians, and the Grand Turk. Now, the 
European neighbors of Russia were beginning to 
fear this great barbarian empire. They were 
convinced that it would become truly a terror to 
them the day on which, by obtaining regular 
communication with the West, it could thereby 
learn something of their civilization, their indus- 
tries, and, above all, their military art. They 

19 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

understood that the backward condition of its 
civiUzation was the only safeguard against its 
ambitions. They, therefore, closed against it 
their eastern frontiers, and barred it out of the 
Baltic. At the time when Ivan the Terrible, 
profiting by the decadence into which the Sword- 
Bearers, the religious military order of the Livo- 
nians, had fallen, took their lands away from 
them, and raised his flag at their port of Narva, 
Poles, Germans, and Swedes imited against him; 
they incited fresh invasions of the Crimean Tar- 
tars, conspiracies and rebellion among his nobil- 
ity; and, after a bitter struggle of twenty-four 
years, compelled him to abandon his conquest in 
1582. So long as Narva was in the hands of the 
Czar, Sigismund, King of Poland, did not have a 
moment's peace. When English merchants 
began to resort there, he wrote threatening let- 
ters to Queen Elizabeth, sununoning her to for- 
bid that traffic. ''Our fleet will seize all those 
who continue to sail thither; your merchants 
will be in danger of losing their liberty, their 

20 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

wives and children, and their Hves/' And this 
confession escaped him: "We see by this new 
traffic the Muscovite, who is not only our 
enemy to-day, but the hereditary enemy of all 
free nations, furnishing himself thoroughly, 
not only with our guns and munitions of war, 
but, above all, with skilled workmen, who 
continue to prepare equipments of war for 
him, such as have been hitherto unknown to 
his barbaric people. * * * It would seem 
that we have thus far conquered him because 
he is ignorant of the art of war and the finesse 
of diplomacy. Now, if this comimerce continues, 
what will there soon be left for him to learn? '^ 
Thus, it was not merely unpropitious nature 
that kept Russia in a condition of blockade; 
but the jealousy of her neighbors mounted a 
most rigorous guard around these " barbarians'' 
of the North. The empire of Moscow remained 
condemned, like the agglomeration of Slavic 
tribes of the ninth and tenth centuries from 
which it had sprung, to a purely continental 

21 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

life. It was shut up to its vast northern 
plains like the Swiss to his mountains, and 
seemed to have as little chance of ever becoming 
a maritime power. 

Hitherto, the Muscovite Empire with its mili- 
tary organization wholly Asiatic, with its 
noble-born knights and free peasants, with its 
infantry militia, the streltsy, with its old- 
fashioned artillery, with its regular troops of 
Cossacks, Tartars, and Calmucks, had been 
able to withstand victoriously Asiatic forces; 
but it could not maintain a struggle against the 
regular troops and improved weapons of the 
western nations. In order to make her mark 
in Europe, it was necessary for Russia to 
become European; but she could not become 
European if Europe persisted in holding her 
in a condition of blockade. It was a 'Wicious 
circle''; and it was reserved for the genius of 
Peter the Great to succeed in breaking that 
circle. 

Henceforth, we see Russian diplomacy, with 

22 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

tireless patience, with a shrewdness equal to 
its persistency, endeavoring simultaneously in 
all directions to pierce the blockade. She 
strives to secure access to the Baltic Sea; 
and we shall have the Northern War of Peter 
the Great, the partition of Poland under 
Catherine II., the Finland question under the 
Czarina Ehzabeth, and under Alexander I. 
She strives to secure access to the Black Sea; 
and we shall have the Eastern Question in all 
its forms, from the first efforts of Peter the 
Great down to the war of 1877-78 of Alexander 
II. She strives to make herself mistress of 
the Caspian Sea, and the attempt made by 
Peter the Great will reach an end only imder 
Alexander III. She strives to secure access 
to the Indian Ocean, and we shall have the 
wars and treaties with Persia, Afghanistan, 
and England. She strives to secure access 
to the Okhotsk Sea, the Sea of Japan, and the 
Pacific Ocean, and we shall witness the work 
of Siberian colonization and all the phases of 

23 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 

the Far Eastern Question. The matter of 
securing new territory concerns her much 
less. It has been the supreme end of her 
efforts, at times continued for centuries, to 
reach a sea, — a sea free from ice, a sea opening 
into the ocean. 



24 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA 
IN EUROPE. 

Peter the Great — Poland — The Eastern Question 
— Latin and Greek Churches — Catherine the 
Great — Turkish Wars — Greek Independence — 
Crimean War — The Balkan States — Nihilism — 
Results of European Wars — Nicholas II. 

We know with what energy and alterna- 
tion of success and failure Peter the Great 
struggled against the Swedish masters of the 
eastern and southern shores of the Baltic. 
We are amazed when we reflect that a war, 
lasting more than twenty-one years: a war 
that convulsed all Europe; that brought the 
Swedes into the heart of Russia and the Russians 
into the centre of Germany; that brought 
about the creation of a Russian army and 
navy imder the fire of the enemy, and that 
numbered a score of battles on land and sea, — 
should have ended in results apparently so 

25 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



meagre as were those gained by Russia in 
1721 at the Treaty of Nystad; namely, the 
acquisition of four small provinces, Livonia, 
Esthonia, Ingria, and Karelia. But these 
provinces gave him on the Baltic the ports 
of Riga, Revel, and Narva; they gave him 
also the mouths of two rivers, the broad Neva 
and the Duna, or Dvina (not to be confounded 
with the other Dvina that empties into the 
White Sea). It was on the islets of the Neva 
that Peter the Great had founded, in 1703, 
on lands still disputed by the Swedes and 
by the floods, the capital of European Russia, 
St. Petersburg, protected on the west by the 
maritime fortress of Kronstadt. Yes, ''the 
Giant Czar" considered himself amply repaid 
for his efforts of twenty-one years by the fact 
that for his vast continental empire, still 
wrapped in Asiatic darkness, he had been able 
''to open one window on Europe." 

This ^dndow was still a very narrow one. 
It was somewhat enlarged by Elizabeth, when, 

26 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



after a war foolishly undertaken by Sweden, 
she made that country, in the Treaty of Abo, 
1743, surrender some districts in Finland. 
Later, Alexander I., during his short-lived 
aUiance with Napoleon, conquered from his 
recent ally, Gustavus III., all of Finland 
(Treaty of Fredericksham, 1809). Russia 
had now no longer anything to seek in that 
direction. 

Westward, between Russia, already power- 
ful and always war-like, and Prussia, now 
grown great in glory and strength, lay an 
extremely weak state made up of the king- 
dom of Poland, the grand duchy of Lithuania 
and some old-time Russian districts. The 
first three partitions of this state (1772, 1793, 
1795), carried the Russian frontier to the 
Niemen, the Warthe, and the Dniester. 
Catherine II. completed these conquests by 
the annexation of Courland, w^hich had been 
a vassal dependency of the fallen kingdom. 
It is to be noted, however, that in what is 

27 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



called "the partition of Poland/' Catherine 
XL did not acquire any Polish, but merely 
Lithuanian territory that formerly had been 
Russian. If Napoleon I. had not attempted 
to reestablish on the Russian frontier a Polish 
kingdom under the name of 'Hhe grand duchy 
of Warsaw/' perhaps Russia would not have 
been ambitious to secure possession of any 
former Pohsh territory. After the fall of 
Napoleon, the Czar Alexander I. was obliged 
to appropriate a considerable part of this under 
the name of "the kingdom of Poland/' were 
it for no other reason than to prevent an in- 
crease of territory upon the part of the two 
German powers. Henceforth the western 
frontier of Russia was fixed. It has not changed 
since 1815, and, to admit the possibility of 
a change in the future, it would be necessary 
to admit the possibility of a total overturning 
of the European balance of power. 

Though Russian expansion towards the 
north was stopped by the icy solitudes of Lap- 

28 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



land, westward by the frontiers of states as 
firmly established as the German and Austro- 
Hmigarian Empires, yet for a long time a 
broad Avay remained open to Russia in the 
direction of the south. The decadence of the 
Ottoman Empire seemed to offer her the same 
favorable opportunities as did the decline of 
the Polish-Lithuanian Empire. In this di- 
rection, acquisition of territory promised to 
be infinitely more precious. The Russians 
could dream of the Black Sea, the Propontis, 
and the ^gean Sea becoming Russian lakes; 
of Christian peoples of the same religion (Rou- 
manians and Greeks), — and of some of the 
same religion and race (Bulgarians, Servians, 
Croatians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, and 
Montenegrians), — welcoming the armies of a 
Liberator Czar, and joyfully accepting the 
domination of Russia in exchange for that 
of the Ottoman; and, finally, they could dream 
of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern 
Roman Empire, freed from the yoke of the 

29 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



infidel; and of the cross taking the place of 
the crescent on the dome of Saint Sophia. 
Nevertheless, it was, perhaps, in the direction 
of the south, that Russia, in her schemes for 
expansion, after some brilliant successes, found 
herself the most completely deceived. 

For a long time the sovereigns that sat 
upon Russia's throne at Moscow, and then at 
St. Petersburg, were infatuated with this 
Oriental mirage. The Russian Orthodox 
Church urged them on in this course through 
sympathy with the Orthodox Christians who 
were in subjection to the infidel. Even the 
Roman Catholic Church at a certain time 
encouraged them in the hope that the sword 
of the Czar might accomplish both the deliv- 
erance of the Christians and the union of the 
two churches, that is to say, the subordination 
of the Greek Church to the Roman. It was 
Pope Paul III., who, at the advice of the Greek 
cardinal, Bessarion, offered to the Grand 
Prince of Moscow, Ivan the Great, the hand 

30 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



of his ward, Sophia Palseologus, the niece of 
the last Christian emperor of Constantinople. 
It was at Rome that the marriage took place, 
and it was the Pope who gave a dowry to the 
heiress of the Csesars of the East.^ It is from 
the time of this marriage that the double- 
headed eagle of the Palseologus took its place 
on the escutcheons and standards of the Rus- 
sian sovereigns. Paul III. was deceived in 
both his hopes; for the union of the two churches 
was never accepted at Moscow, and many 
years passed before a Russian army was able 
to advance a step southward. The second of 
the Romanofs, Alexis, father of Peter the Great, 
set the first landmark southward in the Treaty 
of Andrussovo with Poland, in 1667, by acquir- 
ing a part of the Ukraine, extending as far as 
the upper course of the Dnieper. Vast spaces 
still separated the Russian and the Ottoman 

Empires. Nevertheless, in the coolest and 

(i) Le R. Prerling, La Russie et Vorient — mariage d'un 
tsar au Vatican, FsLYis, 1891; La Russie et le saint-siege, 



2 vols., Paris, 1896-'97. 

31 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



shrewdest minds brooded the idea of a holy 
war against the infidel. Peter the Great, still 
young and journeying in Western Europe, 
learning its arts and himself wielding the car- 
penter's axe at Saardam, wrote, in 1697, to 
Adrian, the Patriarch of Moscow: '^We are 
laboring in order thoroughly to conquer the 
art of the sea, so that having completely learned 
it, on our return to Russia, we may be vic- 
torious over the enemies of Christ, and by 
His grace be the liberator of the down-trodden 
Christians. This is what I shall never cease 
to desire until my latest breath." 

Upon his return to Russia, however, his 
struggle with Sweden occupied all his attention. 
It was only in 1711, when his enemy, Charles 
XII., a refugee in the domains of the Grand 
Turk, earnestly sought to have the latter 
take up arms against Russia, that Peter the 
Great allowed himself to be tempted by the 
appeal which the hospodars of Moldavia and 
Wallachia, Montenegrian envoys, and Greek 

32 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



agents addressed to him in the name of Chris- 
tians who were oppressed and ready to rise in 
revolt. He found immense spaces to be trav- 
ersed; and crossed the Pruth with only thirty- 
eight thousand starving and harassed soldiers. 
He discovered that all the promises of the 
Levantines were unwarranted; he met neither 
allies nor help; and beset by two hundred 
thousand Turks, or Tartars, he had to consider 
himself fortunate to get back again across 
the rivers, after having signed the Treaty of 
Falksen, or of the Pruth, which restored to the 
Ottomans his first conquest, the city of Azov. 

The second southward step of the Russians 
was the conquest of a bit of territory that was 
peopled with Servian colonists, and that was 
called New Servia. This acquisition was won 
by the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739; but it had 
cost the Empress Anna Ivanovna three years 
of war and useless victories, and nearly one 
hundred thousand men. 

The third was a gigantic step. After the 

33 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



first war against the Turks, Catherine II. 
found herself checked by the intervention of 
Prussia and Austria, who -compelled her to 
renounce nearly all her eastern conquests, 
and to accept a compensation in Poland. 
Nevertheless, by the treaty of Kai'rnaji, in 
1774, she had ceded to her Azov on the Don, 
and Kinburn at the mouth of the Dnieper. 
She forced the Sultan to recognize the inde- 
pendence of the Tartars of the Bug, of the 
Crimea, and of the Kuban. This was to pre- 
pare for their annexation to Russia, which 
was successfully accomplished and sanctioned 
by the Constantinople Compact of 1784. All 
the north shore of the Black Sea and of the 
Dniester, as far as the Kuban River, now 
became Russian. The last Mohammedan 
states of Russia were converted into prov- 
inces of the empire, and the last vestige of 
"the Tartar yoke'' was effaced from Russian 
soil. 

At once in the Tauric peninsula and at the 

34 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



mouths of the rivers arose formidable for- 
tresses, Kherson, Kinburn, and, on a bay 
of the Crimea, Sevastopol was made ready- 
to control the Black Sea. An entire Russian 
fleet was built up, which could in two days 
cast anchor before the walls of the Seraglio. 
The conquest of the Turkish Empire, impos- 
sible to Peter the Great, seemed to become 
easy for Catherine the Great. In the trium- 
phant journey that she next accomplished 
through the conquered provinces, her route 
was crowded with triumphal arches, bearing 
this inscription: ''The way to Byzantium.'^ 
She herself provoked the second Turkish 
war (1787-1792). The Russian armies, every- 
where victorious, advanced to the Danube. 
The janissaries and spahis of the Sultan could 
not stop them in their course. But again did 
European diplomacy intervene. Catherine 
II. had to give up the Roimianian hospodarates, 
which had been entirely subdued, and be sat- 
isfied with Otchakov, and a strip of territory 

35 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



between the Bug and the Dniester, and with 
guarantees more explicit than those of 1774 
in favor of the Roumanian principahties. 
This arrangement, accompUshed at the Treaty 
of Yassy, 1792, estabUshed over these prin- 
cipahties a sort of distant Russian protectorate. 
Thus, although four Russian interventions 
had already occurred, not an inch of Christian 
territory had been wrested from the Sultan, 
and not a Christian tribe had been delivered 
from his yoke. 

The fifth intervention took place under 
Alexander I. So long as his alliance, made 
at Tilsit in 1807, with Napoleon continued, 
his armies were victorious. The Roumanians 
were again conquered as far as the Danube; 
Bulgaria, conquered as far as the Balkans; 
and under George the Black (Kara-Georges), 
Servia won her independence with her own 
forces alone. The rupture with Napoleon 
compelled the Czar to sign the peace of Buch- 
arest with the Sultan in 1812. Of all his con- 

36 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



quests, he retained only a bit of Roumanian 
territory, Bessarabia between the Dniester and 
the Pruth, — as also Ismail and Kilia on the 
lower Danube. The Roumanians and Bul- 
garians fell again under the Ottoman yoke, 
and Servia was abandoned to herself. Never- 
theless, an amnesty was stipulated in favor 
of the Servians, and guarantees were given in 
favor of the Roumanians. In 1827, Nicholas 
I., by the Akerman Agreement, which was an 
explanation of the Treaty of Bucharest, caused 
the guarantees accorded the Romnanians to 
be clearly defined. As for the Servians, 
crushed for a time by Ottoman retaliation, 
they had taken up arms under Milosh Obre- 
novitch, and, thanks to European intervention, 
they obtained, with certain restrictions, their 
autonomy. 

The sixth intervention of Russia occurred 
on the occasion of the Greek revolution. On 
July 8, 1827, Russia, France, and England 
entered into concerted action by the Treaty 

37 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



of London. The united fleets of the three 
powers annihilated the Turkish and Egyptian 
fleets at Navarino (October 20). While a 
French army was operating in the Morea to 
insure Greek independence, Nicholas I. took 
it upon himself to settle the rest of the Eastern 
Question. His European army again con- 
quered the Roumanians and Bulgarians, 
invaded Thrace, and entered Adrianople. In 
Asia, his forces occupied Turkish Caucasia. 
The Treaty of Adrianople, concluded in 1829, 
guaranteed the autonomy of Moldavia, of 
Wallachia, and of Servia, and consummated 
the independence of Greece, which was formed 
into a kingdom, Thus were the hopes that 
Peter the Great had entertained respecting 
the Christians of the East partially realized; 
but Russia did not secure any territory in 
Europe except the isles of the Danubian delta; 
reserving for herself freedom of navigation in 
the Black Sea, and an open way through the 
straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. 

38 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



Only in Asia did she secure a territorial indem- 
nity. 

The second eastern war, undertaken by 
Nicholas I., and which began like the others 
by the conquest of the Roumanians, brought 
about the intervention of France and England 
in the Crimea, which caused the Czar Nicholas 
to die of grief, and which ended in the Treaty 
of Paris (March 30, 1856). By this treaty, 
his successor, Alexander II., had to renounce 
all the advantages gained in Europe by the 
Treaty of Adrianople; to give back the delta 
of the Danube; to consent to limiting of his 
military power in the Black Sea; and to abdi- 
cate his exclusive right of protection over the 
Danubian principalities, which were hence- 
forth placed under the collective protectorate 
of the great powers. 

When France found herself engaged in a 
bloody duel with the German Empire, Russia 
profited by the occasion to have a conference 
called at London in March, 1871, by which she 

39 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



secured the suppression of article two of the 
Treaty of Paris, which Umited her military- 
power in the Black Sea. 

The last and the most decisive Russian inter- 
vention was the one provoked in 1877 by the 
Bulgarian massacres, the Bosnian and Herze- 
govinian revolution, and the uprising in Servia 
and in Montenegro. In addition to the help 
of these different forces, Russia made sure of 
the armed assistance of the principality of 
Roumania, that had been formed in 1859, by 
the union of the two old-time hospodarates of 
Moldavia and Wallachia. She again made the 
conquest of Bulgaria and of a part of Thrace. 
This time, it was in plain sight of Constanti- 
nople that the victorious armies of Alexander II. 
halted. The Sultan had with which to oppose 
them only twelve thousand men, encamped on 
the heights of Tchadalcha. It seemed, there- 
fore, to be in the power of the Czar to bring to 
an end the Ottoman domination in Europe, 
to proclaim the liberation of all the Christian 

40 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



peoples, and at last to plant the cross on the 
dome of Saint Sophia. But before the threat- 
ening demonstration of England and the 
disquieting attitude of Austria and Germany, 
he did not dare to do so. He contented him- 
self with imposing upon the Porte the Treaty 
of San Stefano (March 3, 1878), which secured 
for the proteges of Russia an actual dismem- 
berment of European Turkey. Montenegro saw 
its territory doubled in extent; Servia and 
Roumania were declared entirely independent. 
The first received the districts of Nisch, Lesko- 
vatz, Mitrowitz, and Novibazar; the second 
acquired Dobrudscha, but on the condition 
that it return to Russia the delta of the Danube, 
which Wallachia had acquired in the treaty of 
1856. Bulgaria was to form a vassal principal- 
ity of Turkey. Her territory extended from 
the Danube to the Black and ^Egean Seas, 
leaving around Constantinople and Salonica 
only some fragments of Ottoman territory. 
In Asia, Russia acquired the fortresses 

41 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



and districts of Batum, Kars, Ardahan, and 
Bayazid. Moreover, Turkey was to pay a 
war indemnity of three hundred and ten million 
rubles. 

Thus Russia took, so to speak, nothing for 
herself in Europe. It was sufficient for her that 
Roumania, Servia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria 
were completely liberated and organized. Of 
course, she hoped that these petty states that 
owed their very existence to her would be more 
docile to her influence than to that of the Sultan , 
less accessible to the hostile influences of the 
German and English powers; that their ports 
would be open to her, and that their armies 
would constitute auxiliary corps of the Russian 
army. 

An early disillusion came to the ^'Liberator 
Czar." The relative disinterestedness of which 
he had given proof at San Stefano did not fore- 
see the jealousy of Austria, fostered as this was 
by Germany and England. Under threat of 
a general war, they demanded a revision of 

42 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



that treaty. England would have even desired 
that the treaty of 1856 should be taken as a 
basis for discussion, as if she could proceed 
with the victorious Russia of 1878 as she had 
done with the Russia of 1856, conquered in the 
Crimea. The Czar agreed to the calling of a 
congress in Berlin. The treaty that was 
signed there July 13, 1878, curtailed Monte- 
negro of half the part assigned her, and for- 
bade her having a navy; took back Novibazar 
and Mitrowitz from Servia, and was particu- 
larly harsh towards Bulgaria; reducing her 
territory by one-third, and carving the remain- 
der into two provinces: Northern Bulgaria, 
with the title of '^vassal principality," and 
Southern Bulgaria, under the name of the 
province of Eastern Roumelia, which continued 
under Turkish domination, but which was to be 
administered by a Christian government. 
Increase of territory was granted to Greece 
by the addition of a district of Epirus (Arta) 
and almost all of Thessaly. There was even 

43 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



quibbling over the territory that Russia had 
retained in Asia. Bayazid was taken from 
her, and Batum was to be dismantled and to 
become an open port. ^Vhat especially irri- 
tated the Czar was the fact that the two powers 
that were thus depriving him of the fruits of 
his victories found means to shce off a share 
for themselves. Under the pretext of adminis- 
tering their affairs, Austria secured Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, and, by a separate treaty, Eng- 
land had given to her by the Sultan the island 
of Cyprus (30th of May and 4th of June) and 
a controlling situation in Anatolia.^ 

Emperor Alexander II. had run the danger of 
a European war in order to carry out his 
programme of ''liberation.'' The danger still 
remained imminent, so long as he did not 
accept the provisions of the Berlin Treaty. 
There threatened to spring up again, at each 
of the manifold incidents that arose over the 

(0 A. d'Avril, Negociations relatives au traite de Berlin 
et aux arrangements qui ont suivi. Paris, 1886. 

44 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



task of settling the boundaries of the ceded 
countries, armed protests, now by Greece, 
and now by the Albanians, against certain 
decisions of the powers that were not to their 
fancy, and intrigues by Austria and England 
for the purpose of alienating from Russia the 
sympathies of the nations emancipated by her 
victories. In addition to this, the Panslavic 
agitation, which had been sufficiently strong in 
Russia to lead the government to run those 
risks in the East, did not subside. The most 
impetuous minds found cause of grievance 
against the Czar, that he had not carried out 
his undertaking to the end, and had his vic- 
torious regiments enter Stamboul, at the peril 
of a conflict with the English in the very streets 
of that capital. The Liberals made a pretext 
of the constitutions granted the Roumanians, 
the Servians, and the Bulgarians, to demand a 
constitution for Russia. The Panslavist and 
Liberal agitation had, perhaps, some connec- 
tion with the rise of another agitation which 

45 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



soon made its appearance, an agitation called 
Nihilism, of a character entirely revolutionary 
and subversive, and which fitly terminated on 
that tragic day of March 13, 1881, when the 
"Liberator Czar'' became the "Martyr Czar." 
For his successor, Alexander III., the results 
of the eastern war were preparing another 
series of disillusions. The only fruit that 
Russia could still expect from her sacrifices 
and her victories was the strengthening of her 
influence over the Christian peoples emancipated 
by her, — and their eternal gratitude. Now 
immediately after this war the most short- 
sighted Russian statesmen were constrained to 
confess that the success of their arms had just 
created on that "Way to Byzantium," which 
Catherine II. had so thickly strewn with pre- 
mature triumphal arches, obstacles more insur- 
mountable than those which the armies of the 
Sultan had ever been able to oppose to the 
armies of Alexander I. or of Nicholas I., — • 
more insurmountable than the Danube or the 

46 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



Balkans, formerly bristling with the fortresses 
of the Ottomans. These new obstacles con- 
sisted in the existence itself of the emancipated 
nations, and their attachment to their newly 
found freedom. Thus it was that France, after 
she had emancipated Belgium under Louis- 
Philippe and Italy under Napoleon III., found 
that she had raised upon her northern and 
southeastern frontiers barriers far more impreg- 
nable than the armies or fortresses of Austria; 
that she had closed forever against herself 
those Belgian and Lombard battlefields over 
which her ensigns of victory had so often floated. 
In the formation of an Italian kingdom, France 
created the chief obstacle in the way of her own 
expansion on the shores of the Mediterranean. 

The French have naturally and repeatedly 
denounced the ingratitude of Italy; nor can 
the Russians be blamed for their grief over the 
ingratitude of the Romnanians, the Servians, 
the Bulgarians, and the Greelvs. But such is 
human nature! The feeling of independence 

47 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



and of national pride among newly born peoples 
will always outweigh the feeling of gratitude 
towards their liberators. In this respect there 
was no difference between the peoples joined 
to the Russians merely by religion, like the 
Roumanians and the Greeks, and those who 
were related to them both by religion and 
race, like the Bulgarians and the Servians. In 
former times, when the Ottoman yoke rested 
upon them with its frightful burden, assuredly 
they would all have joyfully accepted the lord- 
ship of the Czar in exchange for that of the 
Sultan; but now, when it was a question of 
choosing between the domination of the Czar 
and their own independence, there could be no 
hesitation with any of them. 

The Russias had done much for the Rou- 
manians. Even when they had been imsuc- 
cessful in wresting their territory from Turkey, 
they had in the treaties of Kairnaji, Yassy, 
Bucharest, Akerman, and Adrianople, stipu- 
lated precious guarantees for their prot^g^s and 

48 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



then, later, secured for them an almost com- 
plete autonomy. In concert with France, in 
1861, they had made the Sultan accept the 
union of Moldavia and Wallachia into one 
province. In 1878, they assured this prin- 
cipality of Roumania its full independence, 
and, in 1881, they consented to its being 
organized into a kingdom. But the new King 
of Roumania, Charles of Hohenzollern, and 
his new subjects meant to remain independent 
of every other power, to have their own army 
and navy, their own national policy and diplo- 
macy, and to exercise the right, whenever their 
liberators showed themselves in the slightest 
degree meddlesome, to seek help even from 
Russia's rivals, Austria, Germany, and Eng- 
land, or, even more than this, from their old- 
time oppressor, the Sultan of Constantinople. 
More than once, the Roumanians raised com- 
plaint against Russia, because, in 1812, she 
had annexed the little Roumanian district of 
Bessarabia, and because, in 1878, she compelled 

49 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



them to give back to her the islands of the 
Danubian delta. 

It was the same with the principaUty of 
Servia, also made into a kingdom in 1882, and 
which, according to the needs of its national 
or dynastic policy, did not cease to oscillate 
between Russian and Austro-German influences. 
It was the same also with the kingdom of 
Greece, which paid no heed to the remon- 
strances of Russia, when her national ambition 
was involved, and which had no scruples in 
troubling the peace of the East every time that 
it was possible for her to raise the question of 
uniting to the Hellenic state either Epirus or 
Northern Thessaly or Macedonia or Crete. 

The country that was under the greatest 
obligation to Russia was Bulgaria. If France 
or England had at times assisted in the libera- 
tion of the Roumanians, the Servians, and the 
Greeks, it was to Russia alone that the Bul- 
garians were indebted for this deliverance. 
Immediately after the ''Bulgarian atrocities'^ 

50 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



of 1875, Russia had hastened to her help. 
From the condition of simple raias oppressed 
by Turkey and cruelly treated by the Tcher- 
kesses and the Bashi-Bazouks, she had caused 
them to be instantly raised to the dignity of 
a free people. At San Stefano, she had endeav- 
ored to unite them into one state, the most 
powerful of the Balkan peninsula; which would 
have extended from the Danube to the Black 
and iEgean Seas; and she accepted only with 
deepest reluctance the mutilation and dismem- 
berment that the Treaty of Berlin imposed upon 
"Great Bulgaria." She gave the restricted 
principality of Bulgaria at least a constitution 
when she herself had none. It was the Rus- 
sian commissioner in Bulgaria, Prince Dondu- 
kof-Korsakof, who, on February 23, 1879, con- 
voked at Tirnovo the first "constituency 
assembly"; it was he who presided at the 
meeting of the first "legislative assembly," or 
Sohranie; it was he who espoused the cause of 
their prince, Alexander of Battenberg; it was 

51 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



he who organized a Bulgarian army of one 
hundred thousand men supplied with valiant 
Russian officers, well equipped, well drilled, and 
provided with excellent artillery. Neverthe- 
less, this people and this prince, who owed 
everything to Russia, began at once to prac- 
tice a policy in which the advice of the Czar 
Alexander III. was no longer heeded. They 
set out to remove the Russians w^ho had port- 
folios in their ministry and positions in their 
army. In spite of the Czar, they brought about 
the revolution of PhiUppopolis in September, 
1885, w^hich ended in the union of the Bul- 
garian principality and the Bulgarian province 
of East Roumelia, but which provoked a bloody 
war with Servia, jealous at seeing her neigh- 
bor's increase of territory. ^Tien Alexander of 
Battenberg had to renounce his throne, in 1887, 
it was a prince that posed as a client of Austria 
and of Germany, Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, 
whom the Bulgarians called to rule them. 
With his Prime Minister, Stambulof, he gov- 

52 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



erned, — resolutely set against the influence of 
Russia; he discriminated against her partisans, 
and surrounded himself with her adversaries. 
And, thus, the liberation and the organization 
of Bulgaria, which the Czar had hoped to be 
able to direct, have gone on independently of 
him, and, in certain respects, in opposition to 
him. Sic vos, non vohis! Alexander III.'s 
resentment against Bulgaria and her prince was 
very bitter. The somewhat imperious and med- 
dlesome affection of the early days soon turned 
into hostihty. When Alexander III. died, in 
1894, the rupture was complete between the 
intractable principality and the powerful empire. 
Thus all the wars undertaken in Eastern 
Europe by Russia, from Peter the Great, in 
1711, down to Alexander II. in 1877, have 
ended, except in Asia and on the north coast 
of the Black Sea, so far as territorial expansion 
is concerned, in most meagre results. Seven 
great wars have brought her only a strip of 
Roumanian territory between the Dneister and 

53 



RUSSIA IX EUROPE 



the Pnith. and another Roumanian bit of land in 
the delta of the Danube. Even this last morsel, 
acquired in 1829 and restored in 1S56, was won 
back in 1S77 only at the cost of vehement fault- 
finding upon the part of the Roumanian people. 
Russia, whose fleets have twice — at Tchesme in 
1770, and at Xavarino, in 1827, — annihilated the 
naval power of Turkey, have never been able to 
secure even an island in the .Egean Sea. 

Thus much for material advantages. As to 
satisfaction of a moral character, the Russian 
soldiers have never been able to enter Stamboul, 
nor to pray in Saint Sophia ; and as to gratitude 
upon the part of the liberated peoples, we have 
seen what Alexander 11. and Alexander III. 
could never have dreamed of. 

Their successor, the present Emperor, Nicho- 
las II.. seems to have taken it for granted that 
in the direction of the Danube, of the Black 
Sea, and of the .Egean Sea. the destmy of Rus- 
sia is fixed for a long time to come. In these 
directions, she has no longer any moral or 

54 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



material advantages to gain, and the age of 
sentimental midertakings is also at an end. 
Unless there should come some European over- 
turning, the famous "Eastern Question^' will 
have for Russia only an archaeological interest. 
All that Nicholas XL is doing seems to indicate 
that this is his conviction. He shows no inter- 
est in the party struggles and ministerial crises 
in the Roumanian and Servian kingdoms; 
towards the Bulgarians, he shows neither jeal- 
ous affection nor the irreconcilable rancor of 
his father. Whenever the Prince and people 
of Bulgaria have manifested a desire for recon- 
ciliation with Russia, he has cordially welcomed 
them; he sent a representative to the orthodox 
baptism of the Crown Prince Boris, but appar- 
ently without forming any illusions as to what 
he might expect of his 'proteges. When the 
Cretan insurrection occurred, and the war 
foolishly undertaken by the Greeks against 
Turkey was declared, he was careful not to 
assume a leading role, something that his three 

55 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE 



predecessors would not have failed to do. On 
the contrary, he seemed to sink Russia in the 
"European Concert/' to associate her in all the 
decisions of the five other great powers, and 
purely and simply to accept accomplished 
facts. Also, when the Armenian troubles and 
massacres took place, he did not attempt to 
intervene, nor to arrogate to himself, either by 
land or sea, the role of liberator of this other 
oppressed people. He has rather favored a 
temporizing policy, and has discouraged the 
plans formed by the other powers to send Euro- 
pean fleets to the very walls of the Seraglio, 
and to impose by force reforms upon the Sultan 
Abdul-Hamid. On the other hand, in certain 
other directions, in that of the Indian Ocean, 
in that of British India, and in that of the 
China and Japan Seas, Russia has followed a 
very formal, a very decided policy. At once 
very energetic and skillful in this policy, she 
has, at the same time, acted in entire inde- 
pendence of the '^European Concert.'' 

56 



THE SOUTHWARD EXPANSION 
OF RUSSIA IN ASIA: 

An Asiatic Power — Wars and Treaties with 
Persia — A Way to the Indian Ocean — In the 
Caucasus — Paramount in Persia. 

If the policy of the present Emperor of the 
Russias seems to be inspired by other princi- 
ples than those of his predecessors; if this 
policy has shown itself to be essentially peace- 
able and disinterested in Em-ope; if it has 
shifted its sphere of activity from the West in 
order to devote all its efforts to Southern and 
especially to Eastern Asia, — this is, perhaps, 
due to the impressions made upon the Czar 
during his extended travels in the years 1890 
and 1891, while he was still only the Czaro- 
vitch Nicholas. He visited Greece, Egypt, 
British India, French Indo-China, Japan, and 
China. Then, disembarking at Vladivostock, a 
powerful Russian naval station on a bay of the 

57 



RUSSIA IN ASIA 



Sea of Japan, he returned overland to St. 
Petersburg, crossing the whole extent of Siberia. 
The Czarovitch, of course, did not give his 
impressions a literary form; but one of his 
travelling companions. Prince Oukhtomski, has 
published his in two luxm-ious volumes, mag- 
nificently illustrated by the Russian artist, 
Karazine.* 

The opinions of Prince Oukhtomski seem to 
reveal a new element in Russian policy. For- 
merly the Russians were indignant over Prince 
Bismarck's reported observation that ''Russia 
has nothing to do in the West. Her mission is 
in Asia; there she represents civilization." 
Prince Oukhtomski is not far from holding the 
same opinion as did this envious foe of his 
country. For a few parcels of territory con- 
quered with such difficulty in the West, what 
bloody wars has she not endured? Her efforts 
to obtain access to the sea have been but half 

(») Le prince Oukhtomski, Voyage de son Altesse 
Imperiale le Czarovitch en orient, Paris, 1898. 

5S 



RUSSIA IN ASIA 



successful. The White Sea, blocked with ice; 
the Baltic, as much Scandinavian and German 
as Russian, closed to her on the west by the 
Sound and the Belts; the Black Sea, only yet 
half Russian, and closed on the southwest by 
the Bosphorous and the Dardanelles; and the 
Mediterranean itself, with England holding 
Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Egypt, and the Suez 
Canal, — are these seas, so little available, suffi- 
cient for the needs of the expansion of the 
mighty continental empire that Russia is to-day? 
In Asia, on the contrary, who knows whether 
by the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, by 
Afghanistan and the Indus, she is not going to 
be able to open her way to the Indian Ocean? 
Who knows whether, already mistress of the 
Okhotsk Sea, she will not become mistress also 
of the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea, both 
opening with broad outlets into the immensity 
of the Pacific? Now, the importance that in 
ancient times the Mediterranean had for man- 
kind, and which the Atlantic possessed from 

59 



RUSSIA IN ASIA 



the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, seems 
to-day to be shifting to the Pacific Ocean. Of 
all the nations bordering on this truly universal 
ocean, the Russian Empire is destined to be 
one of the most powerful. As to territorial 
conquests, how are those that Russia won in 
little Europe, where every square mile cost her 
a battle, to be compared with those which, 
with infinitely less sacrifice and effort, she has 
already won, or can yet win, in Asia? Bis- 
marck spoke in disdain of the mission of Russia 
in Asia. Prince Oukhtomski speaks of it with 
pride: ^'The time has come for the Russians to 
have some definite idea regarding the heritage 
that the Jenghis Khans and the Tamerlanes 
have left us. Asia! we have been part of it at 
all times; we have lived its life and shared its 
interests; our geographical position irrevocably 
destines us to be the head of the rudimentary 
powers of the East.^' 

From the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, 
Russia was a province of the Mongol Empire. 

60 



RUSSIA IN ASIA 



Everything that constituted that Mongol Em- 
pire, however, is perhaps destined to become 
only a province of Russia. The capital will 
simply be transferred from Karakorum or from 
the shores of the Amur to the banks of the Neva. 
Asiatic in their mixture of races, Asiatic in 
their history, conquered in the thirteenth cen- 
tury, conquering since the sixteenth, the Rus- 
sians possess to a higher degree than either the 
French or the Anglo-Saxons an understanding 
of things Asiatic. They have all the right that 
is possible to supplant "those colonies of the 
Germanic and the Latin races that are taking 
unwilUng Asia under their tutelage. '^ More- 
over, the true successor in Asia of the old-time 
czars or khans of the Finnish race is not the 
Bogdy-Khan who rules at Pekin, but '' the White 
Czar who reigns at St. Petersburg.'' In one 
of the pagodas of Canton are to be seen, as 
Prince Oukhtomski assures us, four colossal 
figures, called "the kings of the four cardinal 
points,'' and Prince Oukhtomski felt confident 

61 



RUSSIA IN ASIA 



that it was to "the King of the North" that 
the people rendered the greatest homage. 

'Laying aside these dreams of the future, let 
us see what, up to the present time, has been 
actually accomplished to bring about their 
realization. The efforts of the Russians 
throughout their history as an Asiatic power 
are connected with one or the other of two 
great movements: her southward expansion 
towards Persia and British India, and her 
eastward expansion in the regions bordering 
on China, Corea, and Japan. 

In 1554, during the reign of Ivan the Ter- 
rible, the Russians gained a foothold on the 
Caspian Sea by the conquest of the czarate 
of Astrakhan and of the lower Volga. Towards 
the close of his life, Peter the Great waged war 
on Persia, captured Derbend on the Caspian, 
and occupied the provinces of Daghestan, 
Shirvan, Ghilan, and Mazandaran, and the 
cities of Rasht and Astrabad. The unhealthy 
character of these regions made them "the 

62 



RUSSIA IN ASIA 



cemetery of Russian armies/' and the suc- 
cessors of the great Czar had to abandon them. 
A war undertaken by Catherine II., also in 
the last years of her reign, ended in the same 
result, and her son, Paul I., recalled the troops. 
In the region of the Caucasus, the Russians 
had gained a foothold, between the years 
1774-1784, by the acquisition of the Kuban 
as far as the Terek, and, strangely enough, 
it was not on the northern slope of the moim- 
tains, but upon the southern that they were 
to begin the conquest of this Caucasus. In 
1783, the King, or Czar, of Georgia, Heraclius, 
declared himself to be the vassal of Catherine 
II. in order that he might have her assistance 
against the Persians and the Ottomans. In 
1799, his son, George XII. ,^ formally ceded 
his state to Paul I., although his son, David, 
continued to govern until 1803, when the 

(0 Dubrovine, Georges XII., dernier tsar de Georgie, 
et V annexation a la RiLssie (in Russian), St. Petersburg, 
1897. 

63 



RUSSIA IN ASIA 



annexation was consummated. This acquis- 
sition brought Russia into coUision with the 
Persians and the Ottomans on one hand, and, 
on another, with the independent tribes of 
the Caucasus. By the Treaty of Guhstan, 
^^'''' in 1813, Persia ceded to Russia Daghestan, 
Shirvan, and Shusha, and renounced all claims 
upon Georgia and other territories of the 
Caucasus. Another war broke out in 1826, 
which was terminated by the Treaty of Turk- 
manshai, February 22, 1828, by which Persia 
surrendered her two Armenian provinces, ^ 
Nakhitchevan and Erivan. The same year, 
in the Treaty of Adrianople, Turkey gave 
over to Russia the fortresses and districts 
of Anapa, Poti, and Akhalzikh, and all rights 
(bitterly contested by the inhabitants) over 
Imeritia, Mingrelia, and Abkhasia. Then 
began, in the new possessions, the task of 
pacifying the wild mountaineers of these 

(i) Lord Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, 
London, 1892. 

64 



RUSSIA IN ASIA 



regions, and also the Tcherkesses, or Cir- ^ 
cassians, of the northern slope. The Circas- 
sians and the AbkhasAi, roused to fanaticism 
by the soldier priest, the Imam Shamyl, held 
out against the Russians for nearly thirty 
years. In 1844, Russia had in the Caucasus 
two hundred thousand soldiers, commanded 
by her best generals. The capture of Vedeni, 
in 1858, and the surrender of Shamyl, a year 
later, assured the pacification of the Caucasus. 
The increase of territory that Russia made at 
the expense of Turkey, in 1878, by the Treaties 
of San Stefano and Berlin, included the dis- 
tricts of Kars, Ardahan, and Olty, and the port 
of Batum, and fixed the boundary line between 
Turkey and Russia as it has since remained. 

Since the Treaty of 1828, Persia under the 
Shahs, Fet-Aly-Khan, Mohammed, Nasr-ed- 
Din, and Muzafer-ed-Din, has fallen almost 
entirely under Russian influence. In 1837-38, 
the Shah Mohammed, with an army com- 
manded by Russian officers, besieged Herat, 

65 



RUSSIA IN ASIA 



defended by Afghans under the leadership of 
Enghsh officers. In 1856, the Shah Nars- 
ed-Din,, at the suggestion of Russia, besieged 
and captured Herat; but the Enghsh com- 
pelled hun to abandon his prize, by making 
a descent on the Persian Gulf, where they 
captured the port of Bushire and the island 
of Karrack, which they have kept. In 1841, 
Persia ceded to Russia the Caspian port of 
Ashurada, near Astrabad; in 1881, Askabad 
was given to the same power, and, in 1885, 
Serakhs, — all three places very important 
strategic points on the eastern frontier. Persia 
has also agreed to the building of Russian 
railroads that are to pass through her territory 
and terminate on the Persian Gulf. The present 
year, she has negotiated a loan of twenty-two 
million five hundred thousand rubles through 
the agency of the '^bank of Persia,'' estab- 
lished under Russian auspices. This loan is 
payable in seventy-five years, and the interest 
is secured by all the customs revenues of the 

66 



RUSSIA IN ASIA 



kingdom, save those of the Persian Gulf. The 
Shah has bound himself not to seek further 
loans of any other European power, and has 
thereby placed himself financially in the hands 
of Russia. It is thus that Russia, by her 
diplomacy, by her banks, and by her railroads, 
making Persia her political and commercial 
vassal, has succeeded in furthering her scheme 
of expansion towards the Persian Gulf and 
the shores of the Indian Ocean. 



67 



FURTHER CONQUESTS. 

Expansion Towards India — Napoleon— The Con- 
quest OF THE Khans — In Afghanistan — The 
"Key of the Indies" — In Touch with India — 
Abyssinia — British Over-Confidence. 

Towards British India Russian expansion 
was to seek still other channels. The con- 
quests in the Caucasus, which we have been 
reviewing, opened the way along the western 
and southern sides of the Caspian Sea. But 
for a long time the Russians had been endeavor- 
ing to turn the sea from its northern side. 
In the reign of the Empress Anna Ivanovna, 
hordes of Kirghiz, whose camping grounds 
lay to the east of the Ural River, submitted 
to Russia (1734). Her sway was then extended 
into Turkestan, that expanse of steppes and 
oases watered by the Jaxartes (Sir-Daria) 
and the Oxus (Amu-Daria), that empty into 
the Aral Sea, a region that is bounded on the 
west by the Caspian Sea, on the south by 

68 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

Persia and Afghanistan, on the east by the 
Chinese Empire, and on the north by Siberia. 
Here was located ancient Djagatai, the debris 
of former Mongol Empires. ^ 

When the Russians saw these vast plains 
spread out before them, they at first thought 

(i) Subsequently it was broken up into numerous 
states, the principal ones being the khanate of Kho- 
kand, with its chief cities Turkistan, Tashkend, Tchim- 
kend, and Khodjend on the upper Jaxartes, or Sir- 
Daria; the khanate of Balkh (ancient Bactria), and 
the khanate of Samarkand, fallen into dependency 
upon the khanate of Bokhara, on the upper Oxus, or 
Amu-Daria; the khanate of Khiva on the lower Oxus; 
and on the Kashgar and Yarkand Rivers emptying 
into Lake Lob-Nor, and the Hi flowing into Lake 
Balkash, knanates (Kashgar, Yarkand, and Kuldja). 
that belonged to China. Outside of the districts 
inhabited by a settled people are the deserts of sand 
over which wander nomadic tribes. To the north of 
the Jaxartes, are the Kirghiz, divided into several 
hordes, and the Turkomans, or Turkmens, on the east 
of the Caspian Sea. — Consult Krahmer, Russland in 
Asien, vol. i.; Transkaspianund seine Eisenbahn, vol. ii.; 
Mittel-Asien, Leipzig, 1898-99. Makcheef, Coup d'oeil 
historique sur le Turkestan et la marche progressive des 
Russes (in Russian), St. Petersburg, 1890. Albrecht, 
Russisches Central- Asien, Hamburg, 1896. H. Mozer, 
A travers V Asie centrale, Paris, 1885. 

69 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

that they were near British India, and that 
an entrance to that rich peninsula would be 
as easy to them as it had been to so many 
Asiatic conquerors that had gone forth from 
the steppes of Turkestan or the valleys of 
Afghanistan. From this conviction was born 
the first schemes that the Russians entertained 
for the conquest of Hindustan. Even Peter 
the Great thought of it. In 1717; he sent 
against Khiva an expedition under Peter 
B6kovitch that perished on the way. A cer- 
tain A. M. de Saint Genie proposed a plan 
for the conquest of Hindustan to Catherine 
II. in 1791; but the most celebrated of all 
these projects was the one that Paul I. sub- 
mitted to Napoleon Bonaparte, then first 
Consul of the French Republic, whose ally 
against England he had become. The plan 
was to place two armies in the field. General 
Knorring, with the Cossacks of the Don and 
other Russian troops, was to march by Khiva 
and Bokhara to the upper Indus, while thirty- 

70 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 



five thousand French and thirty-five thousand 
Fiussians, that Paul L, inspired by chivalric 
generosity, proposed placing under the com- 
mand of Massena, the conqueror of the Russians 
at the battle of Ziirich, were to unite at Astra- 
bad on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. 
Thence they were to make their way by Herat 
and Kandahar to the upper Indus to join 
forces with the other army. Then, altogether, 
French, Russians, Persians, Turcomans, and 
Afghans, they would pour down into India, 
proclaiming to the princes and the people of 
the peninsula the fall of English tyranny and 
their independence. '^ All the treasures of India 
were to be their recompense.'^ The execution 
of this plan was even begun. The Cossacks of 
the Don, under their ataman, Orlof-Denissof, 
were already across the Volga, when the news 
of the death of Paul I. recalled them to their 
camps. 1 

{}) General Batorski, Projets d' expedition dans Vln- 
doustan sous Napoloen, Paul I., et Alexandre I. (in Rus- 

71 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

The visionary character of this scheme has 
been demonstrated, during the present century, 
by the difficulties that the Russian armies 
have had to encounter in winning their way 
over a very small fraction of the immense 
journey marked out in 1800. At the cost of 
enormous effort, the oases of Turkestan, which 
in the mind of Paul I. were to be simply halting 
places in the long march, have had to be con- 
quered one by one; one by one, deep valleys 
and rocky bluffs, defended by war-like tribes, 
have had to be captured and held. To-day, 
even with these avenues of approach secured, 
the goal seems as far off as it did to the optis- 
mistic imagination of the Czar Paul I. In 

sian), St. Petersburg, 1886. H. S. Edwards, Russian 
Projects against India. On the Russian Expedition in 
Turkestan, see Hugo Stumin, Rapports, Khiva (trans- 
lated from the German), Paris, 1874; A. N. Kouropat- 
kine (at present Russian Minister of War), Turcomania 
and the Turcomans (translated into English from the 
Russian by Robert Mitchell) ; Skobelef , Rapports sur les 
campagnes de 1879-1881 (English translation, London, 
1881); Marvin, Russian Campaigns among the Tekke- 
TuTcomans (from Russian official sources). 

72 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

1839, Nicholas I., wishing to punish the Khan 
of Khiva, who was capturing Russian mer- 
chants and pillaging Russian caravans, des- 
patched a body of troops commanded by 
General Perovski. The severe winters of the 
steppes and the deep snow compelled him, 
when half way to his destination, to return. 
Nevertheless, the Khan, intimidated by this 
demonstration, liberated the Russian prisoners 
(1840), and in 1842 consented to acknowledge 
the over-lordship of Russia. Two years later, 
the eastern Kirghiz also submitted. In order 
to protect these new subjects against the 
Khan of Khokand it was necessary to wage 
war with the latter. From 1860 to 1864, 
the leaders of the Russian troops, Perovski, 
Kolpakovski, Verevkine, Tchernai'eff, captured 
the fortresses of Ak-Mesjed, Turkestan, Aulie- 
Ata, Tchimkend, and finally, Tashkend, a 
city of one hundred thousand souls, and the 
commercial emporium of that region. 
The Emir of Bokhara attempted to intervene, 

73 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 



and had a ^^holy war'' preached by the fanat- 
ical Mollahs; but he was conquered in the battle 
of Irjar (1S66), and promised to pay a war 
indemnity. 

However far the Russians might still be 
from the frontier of India, England was never- 
theless disturbed at their success. The official 
journals of St. Petersburg amused themselves 
with pacific declarations, announcing that 
there was no intention of conquering Bokhara; 
but the Czar organized the territories, already 
submissive, into 'Hhe general government 
of Turkestan,'' and General Kaufmann was 
placed in control. The Emir of Bokhara, 
having refused to deliver the war indemnity 
that he had promised, was defeated at Zera- 
Bulak, and was compelled to sign the treaty 
of 1868, by which he ceded to the Russians 
the khanates of Samarkand and Zerafshan; 
recognized a Russian protectorate, and paid an 
indemnity of two million rubles. The khanate 
of Khokand became, likewise, a vassal state. 

74 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 



The Khan of Khiva continued to pillage 
caravans, and to hold in slavery Russian 
merchants. In 1873, three bodies of troops 
were sent against him; one coming from the 
shores of the Caspian Sea under General Mark- 
ozof, the second from Orenburg imder General 
Verevkine, the third from Tashkend under 
Governor-General Kaufman. The first, after 
a difficult march through the burning sands 
of the desert, was compelled to fall back. The 
other two entered Khiva almost without striking 
a blow. The Khan was obliged to acknowledge 
himself the vassal of "the White Czar,^' to 
cede all that part of his territory situated on 
the right bank of the Oxus : to grant the Russians 
the rights of navigation and commerce, and 
to submit to a war indemnity that exhausted 
his finances. The Khans that had yielded 
to the Russians were now the objects of the 
scorn and hatred of the more fanatical among 
their Mohammedan subjects. These did not 
cease to rise in revolt against them. The Khan 

75 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

of Khokand preferred to surrender his terri- 
tories to Russia; and they were formed into the 
new province of Ferghana, in 1875. The 
same year, the Khan of Khiva offered to surren- 
der his in exchange for a pension. The 
Russians did not wish to annex either this 
khanate or that of Bokhara, less through fear 
of EngUsh protests than because the existence 
of two vassal Khans would allow them to 
conceal the better their political plans. They 
maintain them on their thrones by paying 
them a pension. To-day, the Khan of Bokhara 
is captain of a regiment of Terek Cossacks, 
and the Khan of Khiva is lieutenant-general 
of the Orenburg Cossacks. 

In 1851, the Russians had obtained from 
China some commercial advantages in the 
Kuldja province. Twenty years afterwards a 
Mohammedan adventurer, Yakub-Khan, seized 
the Chinese khanates of Kashgar and Yarkand, 
and incited a Mohammedan rebellion in Kuldja. 
The Russians entered the province, giving 

76 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 



China to understand that they would remain 
there until order was reestabhshed (1871). 
They would gladly have annexed it; but Chinese 
troops had been despatched; and, after years 
of marching, they arrived in Kashgar (where 
Yakub had been assassinated in 1877), and 
upon the Kuldja frontier. The Russians first 
thought of resisting the troops and holding 
the province; but the territory in dispute did 
not seem worth the risk of a war with China. 
By the St. Petersburg Treaty of 1881, they 
gave back Kuldja, except one district on the 
river Hi, and renounced their military position 
in Kashgar in exchange for certain commercial 
advantages. 

To complete the conquest of Turkestan, it 
remained for them to subdue the nomadic 
Turcomans (Tekke-Turcomans). This was the 
the object of the brilliant campaigns directed 
by Skobelef, who carried by assault the fortress 
of Geok-Tepe on January 24, 1881, with a 
loss to the enemy of eight thousand men. Then 

77 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

he took Askhabad, which was afterwards 
ceded by Persia.^ 

The agreement with Persia and the conquest 
of Turkestan brought Russia's power to the 
frontier of Afghanistan, which the Enghsh 
regard as the protecting wall of their Indian 
Empire. At every forward movement of the 
Russians, they protested or endeavored to 
secure guarantees against a new advance or 
tried to gain for themselves some new strategic 
point that would strengthen their position. 
They were not always successful. After the 
first siege of Herat by the Persians, in 1840, 
the English made the conquest of Kabul. Their 
army was driven out by an insurrection, and 
totally annihilated while retreating (1841). 
If, to save their honor, they afterwards recap- 

(0 Colonel Mallesson, The Russo- Afghan Question, 
1864. Sir Henry Rawlinson, Later Phases of the Cen- 
tral Asia Question, 1875. Kouropatkine, Les confines 
anglo-russes (translated from the Russian by G. le 
Marchand), Paris, 1879. P. Lessar, La Russie et 
V Angleterre en Asie Centrale, Paris. Marvin, The Rus- 
sians at Merv and Herat, etc. 

78 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 



tured Kabul, prudence led them to abandon 
it as quickly as possible (1842). After the 
annexation or subjection of the khanates by 
the Russians, the English again made their 
way into Kabul, and left there a resident repre- 
sentative, Cavagnari; but a popular uprising, 
in 1879, brought about the murder of Cavagnari 
and eighty-seven of his retinue. The expedi- 
tion sent to avenge this insult was led by 
General Roberts, ^ since then Field Marshal 
Lord Roberts, Commander in Chief of the 
English Army. This expedition, however, 
brought about as little definite result as did 
the former intervention in Afghanistan. 

In 1881, the English had gained from the 
Russians the assurance that they had no 
intention of annexing the city of Merv, a very 
important strategic point; but in 1884, the 
notables of that city presented themselves to 
the Russian Commander at Askhabad, and 

(0 Lord Roberts has published a work, Forty-one 
Years in India. 

79 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 



made declaration that they accepted the lord- 
ship of 'Hhe White Czar/' The English 
made complaint to the cabinet at St. Petersburg. 
They were answered that the action of the 
people of Merv had been a surprise to the 
Russians themselves; but that they believed 
that they would have committed a great mistake 
by rejecting a submission that was so entirely 
voluntary. The English had secured the 
appointment of an Anglo-Russian commission 
for settling the disputed boundaries, which 
was to decide whether Penjdeh, another very 
important point, belonged to their client, the 
Emir of Afghanistan, or to the Turcoman 
subjects of Russia. The English commissioners, 
presided over by General Lumsden, w^ere the 
first to arrive at the place of meeting. They 
began by fortifying Herat and inciting the 
Afghans to seize Penjdeh. Seeing this, the 
chief Russian commissioner, General Komarof, 
at the head of a strong Russian force, occupied 
the Zulfikar Pass, and made ready to march 

80 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

upon Penjdeh. While on the waj^ thither, 
he was attacked by the Afghans at Kushk. 
He slew five hundred of their men, captured 
two of their flags and all their artillery (March 
30, 1885). Then the English commissioners 
withdrew, charging Komarof with having been 
the aggressor. Great Britain was much irritated. 
Gladstone, who had the Egyptian Soudan and 
the Upper Burmah wars on his hands, called 
upon Parliament for subsidies. The belief 
was general that a war was about to ensue 
between ' ' the whale and the elephant. ^ ' Then 
England calmed down, and accepted the explan- 
ation of the Russians, that the fight at Kushk 
was the result of a ^' mistake.^' In 1885 and 
1887, she agreed to the Russian occupation 
of Merv, Penjdeh, Kushk, and the Zulfikar 
Pass. The Russians were now within one 
hundred and twenty kilometres of Herat, 
known for so long a time as the ^^key of the 
Indies. ' ' 
The question of the settlement of ..the bound- 

81 



^ ^-^.v 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

aries was scarcely disposed of, when another 
question presented itself in the settlement of 
the boundaries of the Pamirs. These form 
a plateau of from four to five thousand metres 
in latitude, known as ' ' the roof of the world, ' ' 
with a rigorous climate and sparse population. 
This plateau conmiands both Afghanistan and 
Cashmere, those two ramparts of India and 
Chinese Turkestan. It v\'as broken up into 
pettykhanates, over which the Khan of Bokhara, 
the vassal of the Russians, and the Emir of 
Afghanistan, the client of the English, laid 
claim to sovereignty. Neither of them had 
recognized until then the value of the territory. 
An ''expedition for study, '^ accompanied by 
six hundred Russian soldiers, made its appear- 
ance in Pamir in the summer of 1891, and 
aroused, by its presence there, the protests of 
the English. At the approach of winter, the 
Russians withdrew; but they again appeared 
the following summer, in larger numbers, under 
the command of Colonel Yanof . They claimed 

82 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

that they were insulted by the Afghans, for 
which they inflicted upon them the bloody 
defeat of Somatash (July 12)^ after which 
they fell back and took up their position at 
Kalabery on the Oxus. This clash of arms 
was succeeded by a diplomatic controversy. 
It was not until 1895, after a keen discussion 
between the two great powers, each contending 
for its own client, that they reached an agreement. 
The disputed region was divided between 
Bokhara and Afghanistan, the former receiving 
the little khanates of Shugnan and Roschan, 
and the latter the khanate of Wakhan, a narrow 
strip of territory, from twenty to thirty kilo- 
metres wide, which now forms * ' a buffer state' ' 
between the two great empires of Russia and 
Great Britain. Even after this agreement, 
Russia found a pretext in 1899 for occupying 
the district of Sirikul, which belongs to Chinese 
Pamir, and which commands the source of 
the Kashgar and Yarkand Rivers (March, 1889). 
Great Britain having occupied in Arabia 

83 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

the island of Perim in the imamate of Muscat, 
in order to control the outlet of the Red Sea, 
and to establish a coaling station in her maritime 
route, Russia, in 1899, also endeavored to 
obtain from the Imam the grant of a coaling 
station on his coast. From this arose new 
complaints and strenuous opposition on the 
part of England. Russia also established her- 
self, under color of orthodox proselytism, at 
a point quite as annoying to British interests, 
on the coast, and at the very capital of Menelik, 
Emperor of Abyssinia. A first attempt in this 
direction was made in 1889 by a Russian 
adventm^er, calling himself Achinof, ''the 
free Cossack. '^ He took possession of the 
dismantled fort of Sugallo on the territory of 
the French colony of Obock. The former 
^^anommda of Sugallo" drove him away, and 
the Russian government disavowed his action. 
The mission of Lieutenant Machkof (1889- 
1892), and the so-called ''scientific mission '' 
of Captain Leontief in 1894, thanks to the 

84 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

ready assistance of the French authorities, 
succeeded much better. Thus was Russian 
influence, in close harmony with French influ- 
ence, estabHshed ahnost upon the British Nile. 
In 1898, the Russian Colonel, Artamonof, with 
some Abyssinain troops, endeavored to meet 
Major Marchand,who was moving upon Fashoda, 
and to reinforce him on the great river. 
L The English alternate between doubting and 
believing that these expansive movements of 
Russia by way of the Caucasus, by way of 
Turkestan, and by way of the Pamirs, are all 
directed towards one goal, the very one that 
the Czar Paul proposed to the first Consul 
Bonaparte in 1800; Alexander I. to the Emperor 
Napoleon (1807); and General Duhamel to 
Nicholas I. (1855), and the ardent Skobelef to 
his government. To many intelligent English- 
men, the goal of so much effort can be no other 
than the conquest of India. Now that the 
frontier of the Russian Pamir is not more than 
twenty or thirty kilometres from the kingdom 

85 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

of Cashmere, and now that Kushk, the ter- 
minus of the Turkestan railroad system, is only 
one hundred and twenty kilometres from 
Herat, the problem of invading India is infi- 
nitely more easy than it was in the time of 
Bonaparte and Paul I. Why have the Rus- 
sians spent so much money and blood in the 
conquest of the impoverished and barbarous 
nations of those sandy deserts and almost inac- 
cessible mountains, if they did not have before 
them, as a recompense for their sacrifices, 
what Paul I. called ''all the riches of the 
Indies." 

A recent historian of Russian expansion,^ 
Alexis Kjause, reviewing all the hardships 
endured by Russia and the thankless task that 
she has assumed, adds, "On its own account, 
the conquest of Central Asia is worthless. It 
is not done in ignorance, but by carefully 
thought-out design, as part of a programme, 

(}) Alexia Krause, Russia in Asia, a Record and a 
Study, London and New York, 1899. 

86 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

the execution of which its possession will 
assist. The capture of the khanates was 
attempted, not as a pathway towards the 
coveted Persian Gulf, but as a road which 
would lead to the Panjab and all that is beyond. 
And now that preliminary steps have been com- 
pleted, the serious undertaking is about to be 
begun." J 

•James MacGahan, one of the best informed 
men on Eastern affairs, wrote from the shores 
of the Oxus in 1876: ''The Russians are steadily 
advancing towards India, and they will, sooner 
or later, acquire a position in Central Asia 
which will enable them to threaten it. Should 
England be engaged in a European war, then, 
indeed, Russia will probably strike a blow at 
England's Indian power.'' 

Other Englishmen pretend to believe that 
the hypothesis of a conquest of India ''is too 
preposterous to be entertained. It would 
involve the most terrible and lingering war the 
world has ever seen. On the day that a Rus- 

87 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

sian army leaves Balkh or Herat for Kandahar, 
well may the British commander exclaim: 
*Now hath the Lord delivered them into my 
hand!' " 

It is thus that Lord Cm-zon, the present Gov- 
ernor-General of India, expresses himself. It 
seems, however, that he is but assuming a tone 
of assured certainty to conceal his deep anxiety. 
This plan of conquest that he considers ^Hoo 
preposterous to be entertained," has been dis- 
cussed by other, and very competent persons, 
who do not reach conclusions so optimistic as 
regards Great Britain.^ Perhaps, however, the 
Russians are at present pressing so closely 
towards the frontier of British India in order 
to have at their disposal a means of intimida- 
tion, or even of coercion, for use in those 
very frequent occasions in which Great Britain 
sets herself in stubborn opposition to Russia's 
plans in other parts of the world. For, at the 

(0 Maximilian Graf Yorck von Wartenburg, Das 
Vordringen der Russischen Macht in Asien, Berlin, 1900. 

88 



FURTHER CONQUESTS 

present moment, the Czar Nicholas II. seems 
much more interested in expansion in the 
Far East than in any movement towards the 
south of Asia. 



89 



THE EXPANSION OF RUSSIA IN 
THE FAR EAST.' 

The Opening of Siberia — Value of Siberia — 
Chinese Wars — Settlements on the Pacific 
— Chinese Cessions — Vladivostock — Russian In- 
fluence AT Pekin. 

The eastward expansion of Russia tiirough 
the solitudes of Siberia and among its barbar- 
ous tribes began about the close of the six- 
teenth century, immediately after the conquest 
of the Tartar czarates of Kazan and Astrakhan. 
It was betv/een the years 1579 and 1584 that 
the Cossack, Irmak Timofevitch, fleeing from 
the punishment of the law and the wrath of 
the Czar, Ivan the Terrible, with a handful of 
brigands like himself, Russians, Cossacks, Tar- 
tars, German and Polish prisoners of war, to 

(1) Krahmer, Russland in Asien, vol. iii. Sibirien und 
die grosse sibirische Eisenbahn, vol. iv. Russland in 
Ost- Asien, Leipzig, 1897, 1898. Legros, La Siberie, 
Paris, 1899. 

90 



RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

the number of six hundred and fifty men, 
crossed the Ural, traversed the immense, 
untrodden forests of the Tobol, defeated the 
Tartar Khan, Kutchum, took Sibir, his capital, 
and subjected to tribute the tribes of the 
Irtysh and the Obi. When Irmak Timo- 
fevitch was drowned in the Irtysh, dragged to 
the bottom of the river by the weight of the 
cuirass given him by the Czar, Russia made a 
hero, and the Orthodox Church a saint, of the 
old outlaw. Along the pathways that he had 
marked out, there soon followed a stream of 
'^good fellows" of every description, gold- 
seekers, fur-hunters, and peasants fleeing the 
estates of their feudal lords in search of gov- 
ernment lands that they might cultivate as 
freemen. Hither also flocked religious dissent- 
ers, persecuted by the Orthodox Church, who 
found a shelter in the immensity of the Siberian 
forest, retreats concealed from all mankind. 
Into this same wilderness escaped the German, 
Polish, and Swedish prisoners of war of Peter I. 

91 



RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

— WW— ——»——^— »——»—— —^■1—»—r—ii^— ■■-■II — ^^»»-»i— »»»»^>— ^— 

and of Catherine II. Then^ in long, wretched 
troops came in chains or in fetters the unhappy 
serfs deported by their masters, often bearing 
the marks of cruel beating and mutilation; 
their sides scarred by the knout, and nostrils 
or tongue cut by the executioner; strewing the 
highways with their corpses. This barbarous 
feature of the old Russian penal code came to 
an end at the close of the last century, and it is 
known that the present Czar, Nicholas II., has 
suppressed deportation into Siberia for common 
law crimes in order to purify that colony of a 
reproach like to that against which the English 
colonies of Australia long protested. The 
rapidity with which colonization of every kind 
was spread over the millions of kilometers 
which the immensity of Siberia measures, is 
shown by the dates of the fomiding of the prin- 
cipal towns: Tobolsk on the Tobol in 1587; 
Tomsk on the Toms, a branch of the Obi, in 
1604; Yeniseisk on the Yenisei in 1619; Ya- 
koutsk in 1632; Atchinsk in 1642; Nertchinsk 

92 



RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

on the Shilka, a branch of the Amur, in 1654; 
Okhotsk on the sea of the same name in 1638. 
Siberia, even to om* own times, has been 
valuable mainly on accomit of its inmiense 
extent and the liberty that free immigrants 
have foimd there. It may be divided into 
three divisions: in the north, the toundray 
marshy in summer, a mass of ice in winter; in 
the centre, the tdigay or forest, dear to the 
hunter; in the south, the cultivated region, of 
an area thrice that of all France. Even this 
last division, except in the districts where the 
''black earth'' is found, is not characterized by 
a fertility that redeems the severity of a climate, 
extreme in its summer heat as in its winter 
cold. In the seventeenth century a belief was 
current that the region about the Amur was, 
on the contrary, of great fertility, a belief which 
experience has shown to be ill-founded. It 
was, therefore, in this direction that the most 
venturesome Cossacks and the most energetic 
settlers hastened. They were not disturbed by 

93 



RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

the fact that the country belonged to the 
Chinese Emperor. In 1649, a young officer 
named Khabarof, imdertook to descend the 
still unexplored river, building forts at the 
jimction of the tributaries, conquering rebel- 
lious tribes of natives, and fighting troops of 
Manchurian horsemen (1649-1652). In 1658, 
Pachkof, governor of Yeniseik, founded Nert- 
chinsk on the Shilka, a branch of the Amur. 
Five years later Albasin was founded. This 
was a fortress with ramparts of wood, and in 
its vicinity there arose many Russian villages. 
Finally, the Chinese, irritated at seeing these 
adventurers assume rulership over them, several 
tunes attacked Albasin with armies of from fif- 
teen to twenty thousand men; but were invari- 
ably repulsed. Upon receiving tidings of these 
events, the court at Moscow sent envoys to 
that of Pekin with a letter written in Latin 
and in Russian. After long deliberation at 
Nertchinsk a treaty was signed in that city, in 
1689, in accordance with the terms of which 

94 



RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

the heroic fort of Albasin was to be razed; 
and the frontier between the two empires was 
definitely fixed as it continued to be observed 
by both countries down to the treaties of 1858. 
On their side, the Russians renounced further 
forcible encroachment and settlement on Chi- 
nese territory; but they did not renounce their 
efforts to gain a foothold by commerce, reli- 
gious mission work, and diplomacy in the Middle 
Kingdom, and even in Pekin itself. The Rus- 
sians that had been made prisoners at Albasin, 
or in battles at other places, had been taken to 
the capital of the empire. Some of them had 
established themselves there as artisans or 
merchants; others formed the Russian guard 
of the "Son of Heaven.'^ At Moscow it was 
known that these men were well treated at 
Pekin, but that they had neither church nor 
priest of their religion. Peter the Great resolved 
to send an embassy to Pekin to secure satisfac- 
tory concessions on this point. This, indeed, was 
the object of a mission entrusted to Eberhard 

95 



RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

Ysbrand, who reached Pekin in 1693, and there 
obtained what the Czar wished. In 1721, 
Tsmailof was despatched to the Chinese capital 
to secure from the Emperor Kanghi the privi- 
lege of establishing there a permanent Russian 
legation. He gave the Bodgy-Khan a letter 
from the Czar and left M. de Lange as chargt 
d'affaires; but the latter ahnost immediately 
after Tsmailof's departure was dismissed by 
the Chinese court. In 1727, a treaty that 
secured greater commercial privileges for the 
Russians was signed at Kiakhta. In 1806, 
Golovine, another envoy, was sent to Pekin 
with a view to obtaining the free navigation of 
the Amur River. This mission failed; never- 
theless the position of Russia in the Asiatic 
East was continually growing stronger. In 
1807, they had annexed the peninsula of Kam- 
tchatka. In 1847, Count Nicholas Muravief, 
who was to win the surname of Amourski, 
became governor of Eastern Siberia, and set 
himself to develop and strengthen the colony. 

96 



RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 



He perceived that it would have no future if 
possession was not secured of the chief river 
and the richest province of the region, that is, 
of the Amur and of Manchuria. The river was 
still so incompletely known that the Grand 
Chancellor Nesselrode declared to the Emperor 
Nicholas that its outlet was inaccessible. In 
1848, a Cossack expedition, under Vaganof, 
perished without the escape of a single person 
to tell the tale. Two years afterwards Captain 
Nevelskoi discovered that Saghalin is really an 
island, separated from the mainland by the 
channel or strait of Tartary, and, in the course 
of his exploration, came upon the mouth of the 
Amur, entered it in a small boat, and planted 
the Russian flag on its banks; proclaiming to 
the natives that the country belonged to the 
''White Czar" at St. Petersburg. The Grand 
Chancellor was terrified at NevelskoV's audacity; 
he already saw hunself at war with China; he 
insisted that the daring captain's action be dis- 
countenanced, but the Emperor replied: ''When 

97 



RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

Russia's flag has been raised anywhere it 
should not be taken down." On his part, 
Governor Muravief endeavored to persuade the 
local mandarins that the best thing to do was 
to leave the Russians alone. The Chinese 
demanded that negotiations be entered upon 
with their Emperor; Muravief thought that 
Pekin was too far away for that and that 
Chinese diplomacy was too slow. He continued 
to act, therefore, as if the country was already 
a Russian province, and strengthened his posi- 
tion by building along the river the forts 
Alexandrovsk, Mikhai'lovsk, and Nicolaievsk, — 
all of these, baptismal names of the royal family. 
Petropavlosk, on the southeast coast of Kam- 
tchatka, had been established in 1740. Other 
fortresses arose at the junction of the several 
principal tributaries of the Amur River. ^'The 
Amur will be the death of you,'' said the 
Emperor Nicholas jestingly to Muravief. 

During the Crimean War the Anglo-French 
fleet blockaded the Russian Pacific coast, and 

98 



RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

destroyed a part of the military establishments 
and of the infant marine. This blockade, by 
threatening to starve out the colony, only 
hastened a decision upon the part of Muravief, 
who had need of Manchuria to furnish food for 
his colonists. Its annexation was already an 
accomplished fact, when, in 1857, Admiral 
Putiatin dropped anchor in the Gulf of Pechili 
and proposed to the Chinese Emperor, in con- 
sideration of Russia's armed intervention in 
the Taiping rebellion, the cession of Manchuria. 
China's only reply was a vigorous protest 
against Russian encroaclmient. War seemed 
inmainent between the two empires. Fortu- 
nately for Russia, just at that time came the 
Anglo-French expedition and the march of the 
alliqg upon Pekin. The Russians profited by 
this event to complete the annexation of the 
coveted territory. The Czar sent a fleet into 
the Chinese waters, and the Celestials did not 
relish having a third European power to deal 
with. By the Treaties of Aigun and Tientsin 

99 



LofC. 



RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

in 1858, they granted to Russia the entire left 
bank of the Amur, the entire territory between 
that river and the ocean as well as its tributary 
stream, the Ossuri, the bay on which there was, 
in time, to rise the fortress of Vladivostock, 
with its prophetic name (Dominator of the 
East). These newly acquired lands formed 
two provinces, the Amur Province and the 
Maritime Province. By the Treaty of Pekin, in 
1860, China ceded to Russia the region adjacent 
to the lakes Balkash and Issik-kul; the boundary 
line between Manchuria and Siberia was re- 
adjusted, and the Russians were granted the 
right to trade in all parts of the empire. Fifteen 
years more, and Russia obtained from Japan 
the abandonment of the latter's rights over 
Saghalin in exchange for the North Kurile Isles. 
For nearly thirty years the boundary between 
China and Russia remained as agreed upon in 
the treaties of 1858 and 1860. But already 
the commercial and political activity of the 
Russians was overstepping it. They had estab- 

100 



RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

lished themselves in large numbers in the 
cities of Chinese Manchuria, — in Kiakhta, 
Mukden, Kirin, and Tsitsihar, the residence of 
the mandarin-governor. The navigation of 
the Ossuri and the Sungari Rivers fell wholly 
into their hands. The steamships of the Amur 
Company put Russia in rapid communication 
with Japan and San Francisco. ''Scientific 
Missions'^ traversed China in all directions. 
At Pekin the Russian colony acquired a con- 
tinually greater importance and the ambas- 
sador of the Czar wielded more influence at 
court than the representatives of any other 
European power. His open handed liberality 
won him the favor of the courtiers, the man- 
darins, and the generals. In all the sea and 
river ports, the colonies of Russian merchants 
multiplied, and these seemed to live on better 
terms with the native population than the 
traders of other foreign nations. On the 
arrival of the Czarovitch, in 1891, he was 
honored with a series of royal entertainments. 

101 



COREA. 

The China-Japan War — Interference of Russia- 
Conflict With Japanese Interests — Russia's 
Gain. 

China and Japan, '^The Middle Kingdom/' 
and "The Land of the Rising Sun/' the Bogdy- 
Khan and the Mikado, had disputed with each 
other for a long time, the protectorate of the 
kingdom of Corea. War broke out between 
the two empires in the July of 1894. The 
Japanese troops, drilled and equipped in the 
European manner, were everywhere victorious. 
Their warships, built in the best shipyards of 
Europe, sank the Chinese vessels. The Japan- 
ese occupied all Corea, stormed and captured 
Port Arthur, conquered a part of Chinese 
Manchuria, captured Wei-hai-Wei, threatened 
Pekin, and finally imposed upon China the 
Treaty of Shimonosaki, April 17, 1895. China 

102 



COREA 

was compelled to renounce all her claims with 
respect to Corea; to give to her conquerors the 
Island of Formosa, the Pescadores, the pen- 
insula of Liao-tung, with Port Arthur and 
Talien-Wan, to open five new ports, including 
Pekin, to their commerce; to grant them the 
right to open manufacturing establishments 
in the empire; and to pay a war indemnity 
of seven hundred and fiftj^ miUions.^ 

The success of the Japanese had been so 
rapid that all the European powers were sur- 
prised at this sudden revelation of such a 
military and naval strength in the hands of 
the Mikado. England, at first hostile and 
malevolent, hastened to show more friendly 
feelings for the conqueror; the United States 
concluded a commercial treaty with the Jap- 
anese government: and all the plans that 
Russia had formed for supremacy in the Far 



I, 



{}) Vladimir, The China-Japan War, compiled from 
Japanese, Chinese, and Foreign Sources, London, Samp- 
son Low, 1896. 

103 



COREA 

East were threatened with failure. She could 
I not allow either Wei-hai-Wei or the peninsula 
of Liao-tung, with the harbors that she had 
so long coveted, to remain in the hands of the 
Japanese. Should she do so, she would see 
! herself relegated to the ports of Siberia and 
1 Northern Manchuria, closed by ice for a part 
of the year, and her hope of unfolding her colors 
: in the seas of the Far East taken from her. 
She could not permit that the influence of 
triumphant Japan should be substituted at 
Pekin for her own influence, already dating 
back a century or more. It was necessary, 
at any cost, even should it mean war, to pre- 
vent the provisions of the Shimonosaki Treaty 
being carried out. She was successful in 
enlisting the cooperation of two states which, 
although antagonistic to each other, had 
reasons for keeping the good-will of Russia. 
These three powers: — Russia, France and Ger- 
many, — formed what might be called "A 
Triple AUiance of the Far East." They for- 

104 



COREA 

warded to the court at Tokyo some "friendly 
advice" regarding the giving up of claims that 
might bring about a general conflagration. 
It was hard for Japan to renoimce the Liao- 
tung peninsula, with its harbors of Port Arthur, 
Talien-Wan, and Wei-hai-Wei, that had been 
conquered at the price of its blood, and by 
such brilliant victories; but the Japanese 
armies were on the Chinese mainland; the 
three powers were masters of the sea; and 
thus the island empire was left almost without 
defence. The three protesting powers had the 
advantage. Russia, in the deliberations over 
the revision of the treaty, showed such pas- 
sionate insistence that twice, May 5, and 
May 8, Admiral Tyrtof made all preparations 
to meet the Japanese fleet, which probably 
would have gone to the bottom. By the Treaty 
of Tokyo, May 8, 1895, Japan agreed to give 
up the Liao-tung and Wei-hai-Wei; to be 
satisfied with Formosa and the Pescadores, 
positions of the utmost importance in the 

105 



COREA 

Pacific; and to receive the war indemnity and 
certain commercial privileges. 
^ -f As a matter of fact, Russia had just inflicted 
upon Japan the treatment that she herself 
had received from the European powers, 
after so many splendid victories over the 
Turks. It was under the pressure of a ^'Euro- 
pean Concert'^ that Japan lost the most precious 
fruits of her success against the Chinese, just 
as the Russian conquerors of the Ottomans 
had lost theirs. Russia set up against Japan 
the principle of the integrity of the Chinese 
Empire in exactly the same way that the 
powers had imposed upon her the principle 
of the preservation of the Turkish Empire. 
The Treaty of Tokyo in 1895, modified the 
Treat)^ of Shimonosaki as completely as had 
the Treaty of Berlin modified that of San 
Stefano in 1878. And just as Russia, in 1878, 
has had the mortification of seeing her polit- 
ical foes, Austria and England, enrich them- 
selves with the spoils of that very Turkish 

106 



COREA 

Empire that they pretended to protect against 
her covetousness, laying their hands, the one 
on Bosnia and Herzegovina and the other 
upon the island of Cyprus; so Japan soon had 
the mortification of seeing Russia violate, for 
her own profit, that very principle of the con- 
tinental integrity of the Chinese Empire that 
she had set up against Japanese ambition. 



107 



CHINA. 

Russian Concessions — Port Arthur — Railways — 
Loans — Corea — Germany — Great Britain — The 

United States. 

England and France, the former in par- 
ticular, obtained from China numerous import- 
ant concessions i; but of more value were those 
that Russia secured. By the convention of 
June, 1895, China contracted with her, through 
the intermediary of the Russo-Chinese bank, 
recently established at St. Petersburg, and 
under the direction of Count Oukhtomski 
whose Oriental policy we know, a loan of four 
hundred million francs at four per cent., pay- 
able in thirty-six years. On October 25, 1896, 
this same bank made another agreement 

(}) R. I. Pinon et J. de Marcillac, La Chine qui s'ouvre 
Paris, 1900. Pierre Leroy-Beaulieu, La renovation de 
V Asie: Siberie, Chine, Japon, 'Paris, 1900. Chas. Beres- 
ford, The Break- Up of China, London and New York, 
1899. 

108 



CHINA 

with the Pekin government. This agreement, 
ratified by the Czar, became, on December 
26, the Treaty of St. Petersburg. It gave 
the Eastern Chinese Railroad Company the 
right to build a road through Chinese Man- 
churia, making it a branch line of the Rus- 
sian Trans-Siberian Railroad; to develop 
coal and other mines in the territory trav- 
ersed by the road, and to devote itself to all 
other industrial and commercial enterprises. 
The stock of the company can be held by 
Chinese and Russians only, which means that 
it will fall almost exclusively into the hands 
of the Russians. A special clause authorized \ 
the Czar to station in Manchuria both infantry i 
and cavalry for the protection of the railroad. I 
This was the disguised annexation of all the 
part of the vast province that had not already 
been ceded to Russia in 1858 and 1860. Fur- 
thermore, China leased to Russia for fifteen 
years a harbor in the province of Shantung, 
and finally, Russian warships were given the 

109 



CHINA 

privileges of the two harbors of Liao-tung 
peninsula, Port Arthur and Talien-AVan. 

March 27, 1898, there was formulated a 
new agreement between the two countries. 
Port Arthur and Talien-Wan and all their 
dependencies were leased to Russia for a term 
of twenty-five years. With this was granted 
the privilege of building through the Liao- 
tung peninsula a railroad from Vladivostock 
to Port Arthur, which is merely another branch 
of the Trans-Siberian road. 

Nor is this all. According to a still more 
recent agreement, a Russian railroad is to be 
built from Mukden in Manchuria to Pekin. 
Another Russian company is to construct a 
system of Chinese railroads, the three principal 
lines of which, setting out from Pekin, are to 
traverse, the first two, the provinces of Shansi 
and Honan, the third, the province of Hupe 
and to terminate at Hankow on the Yang- 
tse-kiang. Against this third railroad, Eng- 
land made a vigorous protest. In her treaties 

110 



CHINA 

with China, she had secured for herself the 
building of railroads and the commerce of the 
valley of the Yang-tse, and here the Russians 
were coming to cut off her railroads, and in 
the very heart of China to draw off the mer- 
chandise that she was counting upon to export 
by sea, and which was now likely to be carried 
by the Trans-Siberian line. After having 
secured the defeat at Pekin of the propo- 
sitions of a Franko-Russian syndicate, she 
encouraged two Chinese of high rank to apply 
for a contract to build the debated railroad. 
They foimd themselves unable to raise the 
necessary funds, and it was then that Russia, 
thanks to the energy of Count Oukhtomski, 
had the franchise transferred to a Franco- 
Belgian company. 

Nevertheless, in November, 1897, Russia 
had neither the ability nor the wish to pre- 
vent the Germans from landing in the bay 
of Kiao-chow which she seemed to have re- 
served for herself, or from securing a lease 

111 



CHINA 

of it for ninety-nine years. Neither could 
she hinder the Enghsh, incensed at the action 
of the Germans, from obtaining, in April, 
1898, a lease of the harbor and bay of Wei- 
hai-Wei, evacuated by the Japanese. It thus 
happens that in the Pechili Gulf, from which 
Pekin receives the greater part of its supplies, 
three European powers occupy places very 
near one another; the Russians at Port Arthur 
and Talien-Wan, the Germans at Kiao-chow, 
and the English at Wei-hai-Wei. The Pechili 
Gulf has become another Mediterranean, on 
whose shores rival Asiatic interests continue 
the rivalries of Europe. The position of Russia 
is much the strongest. She commands Pekin, 
not merely by sea, but by all the overland 
highways. She alone of the three rival powers 
in the Pechili Gulf possesses a vast continental 
base of operations. She fronts China along a 
boundary line several thousand miles in length; 
she embraces and pentrates China; and she 
alone by her railroads, the Trans-Siberian, 

112 



CHINA 

the Trans-Manchurian, and the Trans-Chinese, 
will be able to pour into the very center of 
China and into its capital a great European 
army. Recently in the revolution of the pal- 
ace, which took place in Pekin in September, 
1898, it was manifest to what degree the influ- 
ence of the Russian legation there was pre- 
ponderant. The young Emperor, Kwang-Su, 
supported by Japan, and perhaps also by 
England, endeavored to shake off the tutelage 
of the Empress-Dowager, Tsu-Hsi, and of 
the viceroy, Li-Hung-Chang, the friend of 
the Russians, in order that he might inaugurate 
an era of reforms. The plot was discovered, 
the accomplices of the Emperor were exe- 
cuted or banished, and the Empress-Dowager 
reassumed full power. 

In Corea, Russia took the place of China 
in the long-standing rivalry that the latter had 
carried on with Japan. At Seoul, in the palace 
of King Li-hui, it was the Russian faction 
which, as a conservative party, took the place 

113 



CHINA 

of the old Chinese faction in opposition to the 
Japanese faction, which constitutes the progress- 
ive party of Corea. Japan and Russia disputed 
with each other not only political influences, 
but commercial exploitation. Russia might 
have employed force, but she feared lest Japan, 
the Great Britain of the Far East, might throw 
herself into an alliance with the Great Britain 
of Europe. Therefore, Russia now openly 
opposed Japan, and now again craftily manipu- 
lated her. In spite of the keenness of the con- 
tention, she had the shrewdness never to push 
matters to a rupture. In a series of agreements, 
dated May 14, 1896, February 24, 1897, April 25, 
1898, respectively, the two rivals attempted 
to define the conditions of this sort of condo- 
minium and to establish an equitable division 
of commercial advantages, of mail and tele- 
graph monopoly, and of police force. In this 
division, however, Russia seemed to secure the 
lion's share. She gained possession in Corea of 
a system of telegraph lines which she annexed 

114 



CHINA 

to her Siberian lines; she managed to have 
the financial administration of the kingdom 
entrusted to Russians, and succeeded in 
having King Li-hui issue an edict that the 
future railways of Corea should be of the same 
gauge as those of Siberia. 

With France in Tonquin and the region round 
about; Germany in Kiao-chow; England at 
Wei-hai-Wei, on the Blue River, and in the pen- 
insula of Kelimg before Hong-Kong; with 
Russia throughout all north China; the Japanese 
in Corea, in Formosa, and the Pescadores, and 
the United States in the Philippines, — it can 
be seen that the poUtical problems of the Far 
East have become as complicated as the hke 
problems have ever been in Europe or America. 



115 



THE MEANS AND METHODS OF 
RUSSIAN EXPANSION. 

Fruits of Diplomacy — Absolutism of Russian 
Government — An Enlightened Despotism — Rus- 
sian Colonists — Race Characteristics — Religion 
— Population — Franco-Russian Alliance — From 
the Baltic to the Pacific. 

We have followed Russia in all the directions 
that her policy of expansion has carried her. 
It now remains for us to study the means 
that she has employed, especially in what con- 
cerns her expansion in the East. 

The essential characteristic that distinguishes 
her Oriental from her Western policy, is that, 
^ while nearly all the progress she has made in 
; Europe has been either the cause or the result 
of bloody wars like those of the Czars of Mos- 
cow against Poland, of Peter the Great against 
Charles XII., of Catherine II. and Alexander II. 
against the Ottomans, of Paul I. against the 

116 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



French Republic, of Alexander I. against Napo- 
leon, and of Nicholas I. against the Allies in 
the Crimea, her Oriental expansions have never 
brought her into war with a power of the first 
magnitude, not even with China. However 
beUicose Russia may have shown herself in 
Europe, in Asia she has exhibited a prudence 
wholly Oriental. A score of times it has seemed 
that she was on the brink of a mighty war with 
Great Britain over the frontiers of India; 
with China over Albasin, Kuldja, or Man- 
churia; and with Japan over Liao-tung and 
Corea. Some sort of an agreement has always 
come in time to ward off an open rupture, as 
in 1872, 1885, 1887, and 1895, with Great 
Britain; and as at Nertchinsk, at Aigun, af 
Tientsin, and at Pekin with China. In 1871, 
war with the latter seemed imminent with 
respect to the Kuldja question, but, rather 
than proceed to extreme measures, Russia 
preferred to abandon a part of her conquest. 
In these agreements, Russia it is found, has 

117 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



generally the better part of the bargain. She 
understands how to utilize the amour propre 
of her adversaries. Thus, she helped the Chi- 
nese 'Ho save their face/' for example, by 
inducing them to lease for twenty-five or ninety- 
nine years what they would obstinately have 
refused to cede definitely. Thanks to this 
expedient, it appeared to the Chinese that the 
dignity and integrity of their empire would 
remain inviolate. England also has grown 
accustomed to allowing herself 'Ho save her 
face,'' and to be put to sleep by the mesmeric 
passes, energetic, and at the same time, caress- 
ing of Russian diplomacy. She allows herself 
to see in the "explanations" brought to Lon- 
don, the proof that some bold Cossack raid, 
some thorough lesson administered to her 
Afghan cHents, is the result of an "error", a 
"misunderstanding." A company of six hun- 
dred soldiers is almost always a "scientific 
expedition." The English minister, in order 
not to stir up strife, allows himself to yield, 

118 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



and hands over to his successor the task of 
disentangUng the knot. This successor is care- 
ful not to meddle with what he himself was not 
mixed up in, and what the jingoes and London 
cockneys have already forgotten; and so what 
the Russians have skillfully acquired remains 
permanently in their possession. If the occa- 
sion demands it. they will declare that they did 
not intend to conquer Bokhara; but have they 
proved that they have not made a vassal state 
of it, something that will be more useful to 
them than an annexed province? They never 
intended to advance to Merv; but if the people 
of Merv of their own accord came to them, 
would it be a wise policy to reject a " volmitary'^ 
submission? And thus, slowly, silently, with- 
out excessive cracking of her whip, Russian 
supremacy, in her well-oiled car of progress, 
has been moving on through all Central Asia. 

Russia is the only European power which has 
an absolute government. Its autocratic fea- 
ture, so fiercely assailed upon the accession of 

119 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



Nicholas I. by the "Constitutionals/' or 
''Republicans/' of 1825, and under Alexander 
II. by the Nihilist conspiracies, seems to have 
taken on a new life in the estimation of the 
Russian people, because, according to the expres- 
sion of Prince Oukhtomski, it is the necessary 
condition of the greatness of their nation and 
of her ''supernatural" and providential mis- 
sion in Asia. If the foimdation of the govern- 
ment remains autocratic, this autocracy, is at 
least more sincerely an " enlightened despotism" 
than was the absolutism of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, a despotism thoughtful of the economic 
interests and the well-being of the people, 
blending its ambitions with the legitimate 
aspirations of the nation. It has borrowed 
from the West municipal or provincial self- 
government, but not the parliamentary, not 
even the representative regimen. In Russia 
there is no minister responsible to legislative 
bodies, where changeable majorities successively 
displace one another; but ministers having the 

120 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



confidence of the sovereign continue in office 
for a long time, in such manner that from 1815 
to 1882 Russia had only two ministers of foreign 
affairs, Nesselrode and Gortchakof, and since 
the latter date there have been only three, De 
Giers, Lobanof, and Muravief. How many 
have been those that have followed one another 
during these past eighty-five years in France, 
England, and even the United States! This 
permanency in office allows continuity of the 
same political views and constancy in realizing 
them. No parliament, therefore, no question- 
ings, no blue or yellow books. A restricted 
liberty of the press closes with respect the 
indiscreet lips of reporters and interviewers. 
Hence secrecy in both planning and executing 
is possible. There is no need of throwing dust 
in the eyes of parliaments, of the newspapers, 
and of the people ; nor is there any need of brag, 
optimistic proclamations, and of oratorical 
heroics. Great conquests can be accomplished 
silently. 

121 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



This form of government, though it may 
appear as archaic as the despotism of Nebuchad- 
nezzar or of the Grand Turk, does not exclude 
the use of the most modern appUances and 
scientific methods over which free peoples pride 
themselves; railroads, telegraphs, telephones, 
improved cannon and rifles, battleships and 
cruisers of the latest pattern, a thorough knowl- 
edge of history, of ethnography, and of all 
forms of human speech, from those of Finland 
to those of Kamtchatka. It does not exclude 
the system of military organization in vigorous 
operation by the powerful and enlightened 
nations of France and Germany, nor yet the 
art of securing from the people the maximum 
of military power. 

Russia has a regular army like France and 
Germany, national militia like Switzerland, and 
irregular troops like those of the Shah of Persia 
and the Emperor of China. These irregulars 
date back to the beginning of Russian expan- 
sion. The Czars of Moscow had their Cossacks 

122 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



of the Dnieper, of the Don, of the Volga, and of 
the Ural, In proportion as conquest succeeded 
conquest, the soldier class of the subdued 
peoples were amalgamated with the Russians 
in the '' Cossack armies'' of the Terek, of the 
Kuban, of the Caucasus, and of Turkestan. 
There are to-day Cossacks of the Trans-Baikal, 
of the Pamirs, and of the Amur. For hundreds 
and thousands of kilometres, they constitute 
the grand guard of the regular army, the 
mobile curtain of light cavalry that will screen 
its movements, ''free lances," for whose too 
audacious encroachment and too bold raids, it 
will be possible to disavow all responsibility. 

Behind these, like another advance guard, 
come the merchants, adventurers also, merchant 
adventurers, as the English of the fifteenth cen- 
tury said. Behind these, again, sally forth the 
colonists in search of cheap land, and who, 
following the course of the rivers and streams, 
at times venturing into the jungles, found vil- 
lages over which will soon rise the humble bell- 

123 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



tower of a church. All these people, Cossacks, 
officers, and soldiers of the regular army, mer- 
chants, colonists, and even the tchinovniks, or 
officials, possess to a degree not met with in 
any other European nation, the gift of adapta- 
tion to a new climate and environment, and the 
gift of assimilating native races or of becoming 
assimilated with them. The peasant of Euro- 
pean Russia, very much mixed, especially in 
the East, with Finnish or Turkish blood and 
characteristics, does not differ essentially from 
the Ostiak and the Vogul of Western Siberia. 
These, in turn, show no marked difference from 
the Turkish population of Eastern Siberia, 
such as the Yakuts. From these to the Mongo- 
lian races, such as the Tunguses, the Buriats, 
and the Manchus, and from these to the Chinese 
population, there is scarcely any noticeable 
transition. There was a time, when from the 
Dnieper to the Pacific, all obeyed the same 
master, the Grand Khan, "the Son of Heaven," 
whose heir to-day is the "White Czar." From 

124 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



the Dnieper to the Pacific extends the same 
plain, are found the same chmate and the same 
soil, barren steppes alternating with fertile 
mould; the same manner of life, of dwelling, 
and of dress; the same endurance of extreme 
cold, excessive heat, privations, fatigue, long 
journeys, and a half -nomadic existence; and 
the same tendency to Oriental fatalism, which 
the orthodox term Christian resignation. And 
thus, as Elisee Reclus remarks, the Yakuts 
easily become Russians and the Russians as 
easily become Yakuts, and both Russians and 
natives possess the same readiness in acquiring 
the language of the foreigner. 

Does not the difference in religion constitute 
a barrier between them? The Russian peasant 
with his rudimentary faith, to which, neverthe- 
less, he holds with all his heart, and even the 
pope, or parish priest, with his vaguely uncer- 
tain theology and his ignorance, are free from 
all intolerance. Any form of the Christian 
religion, whatever value it may have, although 

125 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



it clashes with the still less highly developed 
beliefs of the Mohammedan peoples, makes its 
way among tribes that are pagan, Shamanist, 
Fetichist, or vaguely Buddhist. Between the 
Russians and the pagans there is established a 
oneness of faith or superstition. There is no 
question of complicated dogmas devised by the 
subtle brains of Alexandria or of Byzantium. 
The untutored Siberians do not fall into con- 
troversies over the mystery of the Trinity, the 
twofold nature of the Redeemer, or transub- 
stantiation. The idea of God is too lofty for 
these coarse minds, but they all agree in placing 
on the summit of their Pantheon Saint Nicho- 
las, the Thaumaturgist, and above liim, beneath 
him, or equal with him, Christ and the Virgin. 
Beneath these come saints. Christian or with a 
physiognomy that may be pagan. Buddhistic, 
and at times Mohammedan. And all this multi- 
form worship is in full harmony with the primi- 
tive cult of springs and of certain venerable 
trees, with the belief in demons of the forests 

126 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



and river sprites, and with the custom of wear- 
ing certain amulets that the orthodox priest, 
the Shamanist sorcerer, or the Hadji returned 
from Mecca, may furnish. What more is neces- 
sary in order to be, in this Ufe, successful on 
the farm, or in fishing, or in hunting, or in war, 
and, in the next, to be certain of salvation? 
The Tunguse, the Buriat, the Vogul, and the 
Ostiak, who firmly believe in Saint Nicholas, 
have already become, or are in the process of 
becoming, Russian. Are not the Tchuvashi, 
the Mordva, and the Meshtcheraks all children 
of the same father, that is, subjects of the 
same Czar? Though they may be Mohamme- 
dans, do they not still believe in the virtue of 
certain magical words uttered by the orthodox 
priest, the efficacy of the holy waters in driving 
away Cheitan (Satan) and evil Djinns, in the 
protection that Saint Blaise, the old-time god, 
Valoss, of the Russians, extends over their 
flocks, and in the cures wrought in the name 
of Saint Cosme or in that of Saint Damian, 

127 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



those heavenly physicians, who cure their 
adherents without requiring remuneration? 

Those two scourges, journaHsm and theology, 
being almost unknown in the Asiatic Empire 
of the Czar, one can live there in a happy con- 
fusion of things. Politics does not create any 
differences among men, and religion scarcely 
any. There is no time to reflect and subtilize 
upon the more or less brown or yellow color of 
the face, the more or less turned-up shape of 
the nose, the more or less slant of the eyes, or 
the more or less prominence of the cheeks. In 
no degree of the social scale is there known the 
prejudice ''of the skin," so pronounced among 
the English and Americans, and noticeable, 
but to much less extent, among the French, 
Portuguese, and Spanish colonists. Russian 
colonization is not destructive of aboriginal 
races; it does not exterminate them, it absorbs 
them. Marriages, legal or othen\'ise, are fre- 
quent between the conquerers and the con- 
quered. Already, in the days of Ivan the 

128 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



Terrible, Tartar Khans became Russian princes. 
To her subjects of brown or of saffron com- 
plexion, of Buddhist or of Mohammedan reli- 
gion, Russia has always shown more liberality 
than France has to her Algerian subjects. In 
Algeria it has become difficult for an Arab or 
a Berber to rise above the grade of captain, but 
majors, colonels, and even generals of Turkish 
or Circassian race, and even of the Mohamme- 
dan religion, are numerous in the Asiatic armies 
of the ''White Czar." 

The Russians of Europe are fully able of 
themselves to people their Asiatic colonies 
without having to assimilate the natives, and 
without the assistance of foreign inmiigration. 
Russia is fortunate in that her colonies are only 
a prolongation of her own territories. To 
become a colonist, there is no ocean to cross, 
no steamboat fare to pay. The poorest peas- 
ant, a staff in his hand, an axe at his belt, his 
boots slung from a cord over his shoulder, can 
pass from one halting-place to another, imtil 

129 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



he reaches the ends of the empire. Moreover, 
the population of Russia, by its own birth rate, 
increases, in spite of insufficient medical care at 
childbirth, with a rapidity miknown to any 
other nation of European blood, excepting, 
perhaps, the Canadian French. In 1878-79, 
the subjects of the Czar nmnbered ninety-six 
millions, in 1899 they reached one hundred and 
twenty-nine millions, an increase in twenty years 
of thirty-three millions, a number almost equal 
to the population of the kingdom of Italy, or 
an annual increase of about one million six 
hundred thousand souls, a number that about 
equals the present population of North Carolina 
or Alabama. With such a treasury of men to 
draw from, neither military power nor colonial 
strength will be lacking. In Siberia, before 
1895, the increase of population by immigra- 
tion alone was only about ninety-two thousand 
per year. Since the suppression of penal trans- 
portation, especially since the construction of 
the Trans-Siberian railroad, immigration has 

130 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



brought in two hundred thousand annually. 
The population of Siberia must by this time 
have reached the figure of seven millions. Of 
this number at least six millions are Rus- 
sians. This, however, is one person for each 
square kilometre of territory, so that neither is 
there any lack of land. 

For a long time the Russian sovereign needed 
two things to enable him to plunge boldly into 
the depths of Asia. First, he lacked the assur- 
ance that England or the German powers would 
not be able to foment on his European frontiers 
one of those coalitions like those that resulted 
in the Crimean War or in the revision of the 
Treaty of San Stefano; secondly, he lacked 
''the sinews of war," or, as the English phrase- 
ology is, ''the Cavalry of Saint George." The 
alliance with France, outlined at Kronstadt in 
1891, proclaimed at Paris in 1896, and at St. 
Petersburg in 1897, has given the Czar two 
things that were wanting. It assures the safety 
of the European frontiers against any effort of 

131 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



the Triple Alliance. In the Far East, in 1895, 
we have seen how, at the same time, France 
and Germany took in hand the interests of 
Russia against Japanese ambition and British 
hostility. The Germany of Bismarck attempted 
to ruin Russia's credit in the Berlin exchange 
and in the European market. France threw 
open her market and her credit to Russia, and 
either in France, or thanks to her, the Czar, 
within a few years, has been able to borrow 
several milliards. This has enabled him to 
strengthen his army, put a powerful navy 
afloat, consent to large loans to China and 
Persia, complete his European railroad system, 
and push forward the work upon the Trans- 
Caucasus, the Trans-Siberian, the Trans-Man- 
churian, and the Trans-Chinese railroads. 

The results of the darings raids through 
Turkestan, in the direction of the Persian Gulf 
and of Afghanistan, and towards the Amur and 
the Japan Sea, are now consolidated by a 
wholly modern outfit of war and travel. In 

132 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



Turkestan, the ancient capitals of Tamerlane, 
the fortresses conquered by the heroism of the 
Perovskis, the Tchernaiefs and of the Skobe- 
lefs, all of which called for so much skill and 
careful manipulation on the part of Russian 
diplomacy, are to-day railroad stations. There 
are dining-room stations at Merv, Bokhara, 
Samarkand, Kokhand, Andijan, Tashkend, etc., 
and the Russian station of Kushk is only one 
hundred and twenty kilometres from Herat. 
The Trans-Siberian railroad, with its mmierous 
stations, its branch lines to Khabarovsk, Port 
Arthur, and Pekin, and the annexed systems 
that penetrate the Chinese Empire, has consoli- 
dated all that was accomplished by the venture- 
some explorers of former times, from Irmak or 
Khabarof to Lieutenant Nevelsko'i of our day. 
The principal line, six thousand two hundred 
kilometres long, with its bridges of eight hun- 
dred metres over the Obi and the Irtysh, of one 
thousand metres over the Yenisei and the 
Selenga, with its ferryboat, one hundred metres 

133 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



long, that ferries the trains across the southern 
bay of Lake Baikal, permits the transportation 
of colonists, merchants, regiments, and brings 
to bear upon the further side of Asia all the 
power of the Czar who reigns at St. Petersburg. 
In 1889, the merchants of Nizhni Novgorod, in 
an address to the Emperor Alexander III., pre- 
dicted in these terms the brilliant future of the 
Trans-Siberian: '^It will unite to Europe, 
through the Russian Empire, four hundred 
millions of Chinese, and forty-two millions of 
Japanese. One will be able to go from Europe 
to Shang-hai by Vladivostock in twenty days 
instead of the thirty-five which the Canadian 
route requires, or the forty-five of the Suez 
route." The distance between Europe and the 
Far East has been still further shortened by 
the extension of the Russian railroad to Port 
Arthur. In the commerce of the world, the 
Trans-Siberian will work as important a revo- 
lution as did the discovery of the Cape of Good 
Hope in the fifteenth century, or the construc- 

134 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION 



tion of the Suez Canal in the nineteenth. The 
poUcy of Russia is to secure the full attain- 
ment of what she has been striving after 
for centuries in her onward march through 
the Siberian wilds, that is, access to seas free 
from ice, where her fleets of war and commerce 
may have unhindered course. Russia is striving 
for this freedom of the sea four hundred 
years later than Spain, Portugal, France, Eng- 
land, and Holland. She has lost nothing in 
having waited so long. Thus far, she has 
passed through the Baltic, and the Mediter- 
ranean periods, with a power for expansion 
unknown to her predecessors. She is about to 
inaugurate a new era in her history; the 
oceanic, the world-wide era, is merely beginning 
for the Slav. 



135 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE: 

A Psychological study. 

J. Novicow, Odessa. 

The psychology of a great nation is difficult 
to determine. When we have before us an 
organism composed of tens of millions of men, 
we may assume in advance that it contains 
the most varied and diverse elements. You 
may say of it whatever you please; the most 
opposite and contrary assertions may be equally 
true in regard to it. One is, therefore, neces- 
sarily reduced to certain broad generalizations, 
which remain in a very large measure superficial. 
Even approximate precision is impossible in 
matters of this kind. Errors and subjective 
irregularities are more likely to arise here than 
anywhere else. Almost involuntarily, every 
sociologist, in determining the psychology of 
his nation, gives more or less the psychology 

139 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

of his own individuality. In vain we may 
employ every effort to arrive at the impartial 
truth; we can never completely attain such a 
result. On the other hand, when one under- 
takes to define the psychology of a foreign 
nation, he falls into even greater inaccuracies. 
When we do not belong to a nation, when 
we have not breathed in its inherent atmos- 
phere with our ver}^ first breath, we cannot 
feel as does this nation; and this makes it 
impossible to talk of it with any intelligence. 

From still another point of view, it is difficult 
to define the psychology of a nation, because 
psychology is, in its very essence, vague and 
indefinite. "^Hien we think of the American, 
English, or Russian people, a certain picture, 
it is true, rises before the mind; but the outlines 
are so wavering and intangible that it is almost 
impossible to express this picture in words. 
The fundamental difference between people 
is marked far more by their manner of feeling 
than by their manner of thinking. But how 

140 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

are we to define in words this manner of feeling 
on the part of an individual, and, still more, 
that of a nation composed of millions of indiv- 
iduals? 

But if the psychology of any people in general 
is difficult to determine, that of the Russian 
people in particular is very much more so. 
In the first place, we may ask ourselves, ' ' T\liat 
is the Russian nation?" It is a imion of Slav 
populations inhabiting the northeastern part 
of Europe, a part of the Caucasus, and Siberia. 
But this branch of the Slav race is fm*ther 
di\'ided into three great branches; the Great 
Russians, Little Russians, and TMiite Russians. 
Some ethnographers and linguists maintain 
that the Little Russians should not be consid- 
ered part of the Russian nation, but as an 
independent Slav nation, just like the Czechs 
and Poles. And here a new obstacle confronts 
us. We shall overcome it, however, by limiting 
ourselves in this essay to speaking of the Great 
Russians. This will be the more legitimate^ 

141 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

since they form much the most numerous 
and important branch. The Great Russians 
compose more than two thirds of the Russian 
nation in general. There are about fifty 
milhons of them, and they have also the advan- 
tage in intellectual development. The Great 
Russian dialect, the Muscovite dialect, is now 
the literary language of all Russia, the language 
of Pushkin, of Lermontof, and of Tolstoi. 

Imagine an instrimient for measuring the 
intellect and morality of men. Imagine that, 
with the aid of such an instrument, we had 
measured the intellect and morality of all the 
Americans, of all the English, and of all the 
Russians. I am convinced that we should 
obtain very similar averages. No one can 
dispute the fact, however, that at the different 
epochs of history, some nations may be more 
advanced than others. But the nations which 
are most in advance at a certain period may 
not be so at another. The Italians were much 
in advance of the English in the fifteenth 

142 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

century, which would seem to show that the 
psychology of a people is not immutable, and can 
hardly be definitely determined once and for 
all. Like a living existence, a people is contin- 
ually changing; so that what we say of it 
to-day may be no longer true of it to-morrow. 
Hence a new difficulty arises in determining 
the psychology of a nation. 

But the reader will doubtless inquire, ' ' Since 
you recognize that so many obstacles lie before 
you, why imdertake this task?'' I do so at 
the solicitation of the Editor of this volume, 
and the precise object of these preliminary 
remarks is to secure the reader's indulgence 
for the imperfection of my work. 

If the opinions stated in the following pages 
are not clear and well defined, if inaccuracies 
and contradictions appear there, it is for the 
reason that, in the nature of things, it is impos- 
sible to trace with geometric precision the 
outlines of a popular psychology. Life is a 
continually changing metamorphosis. He who 

143 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

speaks of living things must perforce limit him- 
self to approximations more or less vague, and 
with little resemblance to algebraic theorems. 

I. Race and Temperament. 

The Russian Empire contains more than 
sixty-five independent racial groups. It is 
a veritable Tower of Babel. Even with the 
omission of Siberia and Central Asia, there 
remain in Russia in Europe, and the Cau- 
casus alone, forty-six different peoples. In the 
northwest, the Fins; in the west, the Lithuan- 
ians and Poles; in the southwest the Rouman- 
ians; and in the east, on the banks of the Volga, 
numerous groups of Uralo- Altaic populations: 
the Tcheremisa, Mordia, Votiaki, and Permians. 
In the southeast, there are the Tartars in 
Crimea, and Greeks on the Sea of Azof. Add 
to this the sporadic groups of Germans and 
Jews. All these numerous elements have in 
a great measure commingled. The history 
of Russia is the reverse, properly speaking 

144 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

of that of the United States. While in America 
there is an Aryan invasion proceeding from 
east to west, in Russia there is an Aryan inva- 
sion going from west to east. The centre from 
which the Slav emigrations set forth seems 
to have been the region of the Dnieper and 
Galicia. The upper tributaries of the Dnieper 
were settled first. The Slavs then reached 
the Baltic and founded Novgorod the Great. 
Later (from the eleventh to the thirteenth 
centuries) they invaded the basin of the Volga, 
and founded successively Moscow, Nijni-Nov- 
gorod, Saratof, and many other cities. This 
movement is still going on. The American 
''Far West'' has a counterpart in the ''Far 
Easf of Siberia. Nearly two hundred and 
twenty thousand Russian colonists settle there 
every year. But while the Aryans of America 
have almost exterminated the autochthonous 
population of the Redskins, the Russians emi- 
grants have commingled with the ancient 
autochthonous populations of eastern Russia. 

145 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

The Russian people is thus, in its sum total, 
a mixture of Slavs and Fins. 

Given such conditions, it is very difficult to 
determine the physical and physiological type 
not only of the Russian people in general/ 
but also of the Great Russians in particular. 
Are the latter dark or light? To tell the truth, 
they are both. According to the researches 
of ethnographers, we see that the number of 
Great Russians with dark hair varies, with 
the different regions, from fifth-one to fifth- 
seven in a hmidred. These dark shades, 
furthermore, cover the entire scale from raven 
black to light brown. The same is true of the 
eyes as of the hair. Every shade is to be met 
with among the Russians, with a predominance, 
however, of grey eyes. If we consider blue and 
grey'^eyes as belonging in the category of light, 
and brown eyes as belonging in the category 

(i) We have already seen that they are divided into 
three great branches: the Great Russians (about fifty 
millions), the Little Russians (about twenty millions), 
and the White Russians (about five millions). 

146 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

of dark colored ones, we must confess that, 
although in a slight degree, light shades rather 
predominate among the Russians. 

As to the conformation of the skull (to which 
is now attributed an importance which is as 
exaggerated as it is arbitrary), all types thereof 
are to be found in Russia. We find there the 
brachycephalic type, the mesaticephalic, and 
the doUchocephalic. But the archaeological 
researches of recent years, which have been very 
accurate, are responsible for a singular discovery, 
to the effect that in ancient times in Russia 
the dolichocephalic type predominated, and 
that in recent times it has been continually 
decreasing. This remark completely subverts 
certain modern theories, in accordance with 
which the number of the dolichocephalic type 
increases with the greater development of 
intellect. It may be maintained, however, that 
the Great Russians are more dolichocephalic 
than the Slavs of the south, — the Bulgarians 
and Servians. 

147 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

Of what race, then are the Russians? It is 
very difficult to say. In the first place, there 
is no longer a single pure race in Europe; but 
of them all, the Russian nation is certainly 
composed of the greatest number of races. Into 
the vast plain which serves as its country have 
rushed a thousand different peoples. The 
modern Russians are a most complex mixture, 
whose constituent elements it is impossible 
henceforth to distinguish. There is an analogy 
in this respect, also, between the Russians and 
the Americans, who are a product of the crossing 
of all the races of Europe, Asia, Africa, and 
the new continent. 

Granted that the race of the Russians is so 
difficult to determine, it is even more difficult 
to describe their exterior aspect and their tem- 
perament. Every type imaginable is to be 
met with in Russia. The choleric, the lymphatic 
and the bilious. Apparently, however (this 
is a personal opinion of the author's, for there 
are no statistics on this subject), the lymphatic 

148 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

type predominates. In general, the Muscovites 
are very tall, have full forms, soft thick beards, 
and abundant hair. This Vv^ould probably 
represent the average type of masculine beauty 
in the Russian race. The type of feminine 
beauty consists, also, in a rather lofty stature, 
and forms which are well rounded but neither 
slender nor graceful. While I am writing 
these lines, a type of the Russian woman arises 
before me. It differs from the American, 
English, and French woman, but a pencil is 
needed to draw it and not a pen. 

II. Genekal Psychology. 

Moreover, I am in haste to pass on to the 
psychical factors. The race and its exterior 
traits are of very slight importance in sociology, 
and for this reason I do not think it worth while 
to dwell long upon them. 

But it will be easily understood that there 
are quite as many, if not more, difficulties to 
be met with on the psychological plane than on 

149 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

the physiological. If it is not easy to determine 
what colored eyes predominate in a people 
(for which direct observation only is required), 
still less so is it to determine the sort of char- 
acter. On this subject we shall have to content 
ourselves with general approximations. 

Keeping within these limits, we may venture 
to assert that one of the most prominent traits 
of the Great Russian character is an inequality 
of effort. It would seem as if the Russians 
had modeled themselves on the climate of 
their country, which offers the greatest extremes 
of heat and cold.^ It has been known for a 
long time, that among the Russians, . periods 
of eager activity are succeeded by periods of 
an almost insurmomitable apathy. 

Very often, in Russia, certain individuals 
are the victims of an intermittent alcoholism. 
They remain for months, sometimes, without 

(i) At Yakootsk, in Siberia, thirty-six degrees of heat 
in summer follow sixty degrees of cold in winter, which 
makes a range of ninety-six degrees. 

150 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

drinking a drop of liquor. Then comes the 
period of alcohoUsm, and for a long time they 
are uninterruptedly tipsy from morning till 
night. For many Russians, too, this is their 
method of labor. They pass weeks doing 
nothing; and, then, all at once, they are capable 
of working thirty-six consecutive hours, and 
they then get through an enormous amount 
of work. Naturally, this remark applies rather 
to the wealthy and cultured, for the laboring 
classes of both city and country work regularly 
a fixed number of hours throughout the year. 
This inequality of effort is the trait among 
the Russians which will strike the stranger 
most forcibly. It seems to constitute a char- 
acteristic, as it were, of the Russian mind. 
It is in no sense a fatality inherent in the race, 
as the exponents of certain pseudo-scientific 
theories maintain. This inequality of effort 
is the result of historical circumstances, and 
when these circumstances shall have been 
modified it will disappear. What I have said 

151 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

as to the degree of morality may be repeated 
of the amomit of energy. This amount is evi- 
dently present in equal force in every nation, 
but according to the bent given by historical cir- 
cumstanceSj one nation may possess more of it 
at a given moment than another. Until the 
sixteenth ,, century, the English were known 
for their indolence and apathy. The Flor- 
entines who went to England in the fifteenth 
century found the English positively inert. 
The great activity of the American people in 
our own time comes, in great measure, from 
their realization of the magnitude of the task 
which lies before them (an entire continent, 
immense and amazingly fertile, to people and 
cultivate) and the political facilities which 
they enjoy. The Russians have a territory 
more vast and fertile even than that of the 
Americans and quite as uncultivated. There 
is, then, no lack of work for them. Un- 
happily they have not yet had a chance to 
have free play, from a political point of 

152 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

view; hence their state of apathy and dis- 
couragement. 

But should there come a more fortunate 
period in their history, it is quite probable 
that there would be found no less persistency 
of effort among the Russians than among 
the Anglo-Saxons. Even now certain indi- 
vidual proofs of this may be seen, for ine- 
quality of effort is very far from being a universal 
fact among cultivated Russians. 

If the Russians often experience these periods 
of apathy, we may at least exhibit in contrast 
with them some examples of a force of energy, 
calm and tenacious, which serves to over- 
come all obstacles. Cases of this may be fre- 
quently observed among the men, though 
that is but natural. Per contra, they are much 
more remarkable when found among the 
women. For the Russian woman has given 
some admirable examples of heroism. Strug- 
gling at times against much greater obstacles 
than her American sisters, she has succeeded 

153 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

in obtaining an important place, notwith- 
standing, in science, art, and literature. Gen- 
erally speaking, the intellectual emancipation 
of the Russian woman, at the present time, 
seems to us in advance of that of the German, 
French, Italian, or English woman. The 
American woman alone, with her high mental 
culture, seems to us able to bear comparison 
with the Russian. 

What is, in our day, the dominant trait of 
the Russian woman? It is very difficult to 
say. All traits meet in her. Unquestionably 
that of a formal sentimentality no longer 
predominates, as it did at the beginning of 
the nineteenth century; but it is almost impos- 
sible to determine just what type of woman 
is acknowledged to prevail at the present 
moment in Russia. 

III. Sentiment. 

From the point of view of sentiment, we 
may say that a large amount of good nature 

154 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

is very characteristic of the Russian. Of all 
the peoples of Europe, this is, perhaps, one 
of the least cruel. 

I know that such an opinion has almost 
the air of a paradox. The Russian people 
have an execrable reputation. The knout, 
Siberia, the extreme severity of the govern- 
ment, intolerance, Poland, the sufferings of 
the Nihilists, the persecution of the unhappy 
Jews, — all this has given the Russian nation 
a reputation for imiversal cruelty. 

In order, therefore, to have my opinion 
respected, it will be necessary to support it 
by facts. I shall allege, in the first place, 
that you never observe among the Russians 
any popular sport of a brutal character, — 
such as cock fights, bull fights, or even box- 
ing, or pugilism. Neither are customs like 
''lynch law'' to be met with, which, though 
justified by the social exigencies of certain 
times, is nevertheless a very cruel practice. 
In this summary course of procedure, ^the 

155 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

penalty of death is very often inflicted 
for offences which, in truth, hardly merit so 
terrible a punishment. Another proof of the 
gentle nature of the Russian people is the 
security which reigns, both on the high roads 
and in the country districts. Within the 
memory of man, there has not been a region 
of Great Russia which has been permanently 
infested with brigands. Night and day, one 
may traverse the most lonely roads with a 
sense of perfect security. Crimes are occa- 
sionally perpetrated, but only in sporadic 
and individual cases. For centuries, now, 
there has not been seen in Russia a social 
condition such as was presented recently by 
Spain, the Kingdom of Naples, Sicily, Greece, 
and such as Turkey still presents. The only 
portion of the Russian Empire where high- 
way robbery still exists, is in the southern part 
of the Caucasus; but there it is practiced 
by the indigenous populations, and more often 
by the Mussulmans. 

156 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

Every one knows the feelings aroused in 
the lower classes of the Russian population 
by those who have been judicially convicted. 
It is pity, with which hardly an atom of hate 
or resentment is mingled. Finally, we must 
observe that Russia was the first to suppress 
the death penalty for offences against the 
common law. 

It may be stated, further, that, in many 
cases, the Russian administration is rather 
badly run, precisely because of the natural 
good nature of the nation. The chiefs are 
sometimes so complacent that they not only 
cannot make up their minds to dismiss their 
subordinates, but often do not even have 
resolution enough to censure them. The 
public service naturally suffers. It is the same 
with pensions. The municipal and provincial 
council boards are extremely lavish with them. 
Very few people have within them the courage 
to refuse, categorically, such help when de- 
manded, even though this may not be abso- 

157 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

lutely needed. Numerous abuses proceed from 
this kindness of character. 

Whence comes it, then, that the Russians 
have so great a reputation for cruelty? 

From several causes. In the first place, we 
may observe in them the same trait in point 
of sentiment as in point of mental activity. 
The Russian is very unequal. If carried away, 
under certain circumstances, until he is quite 
beside himself, he may commit the greatest 
excesses. The Russian is less master of him- 
self than the Anglo-Saxon. But these very 
acts of cruelty, which are very uncommon, 
make the greater impression the rarer they 
are. The public likes to generalize, and is 
apt to consider as an habitual trait of char- 
acter what is for the most part exceptional. 
I do not mean that there are no cases of cruelty 
among the Russian people, and that they are 
better than any others. No; I only wish to 
say that, as is very commonly believed, they 
are no worse. 

158 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

Aside from the inequality in his character, 
there are several other causes which lead to 
a belief in the cruelty of the Russian. In 
the first place, facts of a political nature. 
When it is a question of reasons of state, the 
sentiment of pity seems to vanish. Severe 
legislation is believed to be necessary, in order 
to save the state, and thus all pity seems a 
culpable weakness. If our ancestors, in the 
Middle Ages and up to within comparatively 
recent times, had such harsh penal legislation 
it is not that individually they were any worse 
than we are; it was only because they believed 
such legislation indispensable. Russia, having 
developed more slowly than other nations 
of the West, preserved longer certain archaic 
and cruel institutions, like slavery and cor- 
poral punishment. All the European nations 
have had, at some time, penal laws as barbar- 
ous as those of Russia; but they have sooner 
given them up. The sight of the Russian 
inflicting very severe punishments, already 

159 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 



forgotten in the West, is the source of the 
inference that they were more cruel than the 
Occidentals. This was not the case; they 
were only less advanced in point of ideas. 
They still believed these barbarous punish- 
ments to be necessary, after the other nations 
no longer shared in their error. 

And, then, the Russian government has an 
execrable reputation; since nearly all the 
civilized countries have become constitutional, 
and Russia has not, the line has been drawn, 
as it were, between the Russian government 
and the others. The former is in nowise the 
most cruel, but it is believed to be so. And, 
then, the Russian government commits one 
great fault: it judges political offences with 
closed doors. There may thus naturally be 
put to their account a whole series of cruelties 
which they have never committed. I am 
convinced that the number of individuals 
sent to Siberia for political crimes, during the 
whole course of the nineteenth century, does 

160 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

not exceed, perhaps, three or four thousand 
persons.^ But the figures current in pubHc 
opinion in the West are infinitely larger. Of 
course these figures are hypothetical. People 
speak with the greatest fluency of fifty or 
sixty thousand persons a year. Human imag- 
ination has no limits ! 

The political prisons of Russia have every- 
where an execrable reputation. It is true 
that here and there revolting cruelties may 
be found. Political convicts are deprived, 
unhappily, of all legal protection. Their fate 
depends upon the personal character of the 
individual who is in charge of their prison. 
And among these individuals are to be found 
some who are monsters. But, generally speak- 
ing, I believe that political prisoners experience 
no worse treatment in Russia than in other 
countries. 

(i) This is a purely personal opinion, for precisely 
in consequence of the very mystery with which the 
Russian government surrounds itself, there is no accu- 
rate information to be had on this subject. 

161 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

If we examine closely certain special cases, 
we may convince ourselves that the Russian 
government is no more cruel than any of the 
others. 

The reputation for severity of the Emperor 
Nicholas I. is well known. It was so terrible 
that a certain English author was amazed 
to learn that he was an excellent father of a 
family and was very fond of his children. 
It seemed to this author as if Nicholas I. were 
a vampire, thirsting for blood. Let us see 
the facts. The Emperor Alexander I. died, 
in 1825, without issue. His younger brother, 
Constantine, having renounced the throne, 
it reverted to the third brother, Nicholas. 
But Constantine's renunciation was not gen- 
erally known. On the death of Alexander, 
the oath of allegiance to Constantine was 
taken by many official bodies in St. Peters- 
burg. A few superior officers of the guard 
availed themselves of this circumstance to 
incite the troops against Nicholas, and to 

162 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

make the attempt to suppress autocratic 
power in Russia. This is what is called the 
Revolution of December. After Nicholas 
had subdued them, he caused the officers 
who had revolted against him to be tried. 
Five only were condemned to death and exe- 
cuted. Thus a revolt of the army against 
their legitimate sovereign (for that was how 
Nicholas I. regarded it) caused the blood of 
but five persons to be shed, and this in bar- 
barous Russia, and by one of her most cruel 
monarchs. 

Let us see what was passing in the countries 
of the West at this same period. I shall not 
speak of France and the Revolution. Such 
a comparison would be impossible. There, 
under a mere suspicion, people were sent to 
the guillotine. The great poet Andre Chenier 
was beheaded for sympathizing with the 
Royalists, and also because he had written 
some verses against the members of the Na- 
tional Convention ! But, long after the ' ' Terror, ' ' 

163 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

the French government had become no more 
beneficent. In 1824, four unhappy sergeants 
were executed in France only because they 
were members of a secret society. Is it neces- 
sary to recall the summary military execution 
by the Austrians in 1848? How many victims 
then perished! And no vulgar conspirators 
either, but noble warriors who had fought 
openly and bared their breasts to the enemy. 
But of all the European nations, Spain assuredly 
holds the palm for cruelty. In 1824, seven 
Free Masons were there executed, simply for 
having held a meeting! In 1831, a young man 
was hung for having cried ^'Hurrah for Liberty ! " 
A woman was hung in Granada for having 
embroidered a flag with the inscription, ^'Law, 
Liberty, Equality.^' Such examples might be 
multiplied. But these which I have just cited 
are sufficient, it seems to me, to show that the 
Russian government is far, indeed, from being 
as cruel as those of Western Europe. Simply 
because it is autocratic, while the others are 

164 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 



constitutional, it enjoys a reputation which 
it does not always merit. 

What I have just said is to prove what I 
have already advanced on the subject of the 
good nature of the Russian people. But, in 
consequence of the unevenness of character 
which is one of their dominant traits, this 
habitual good nature may be transformed 
at times into very great brutality, as I shall 
have occasion to point out when I come to 
speak of politics. 

Next to their good nature, one of the most 
universal traits of the Russian people is a large 
share of melancholy and sadness. The life of 
the Russian is far from being a very happy 
one. The country itself is not cheerful. Dur- 
ing six months of the year, it is shrouded in 
snow, and, in Summer also, the coloring is 
rather dull. 

The great pine forests which occupy all the 
northern part have a melancholy aspect. But 
even the caducous species which prevail in 

165 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

Russia (the birch, for example,) have not very 
brilliant tints. Elsewhere the surface of the 
ground is gently undulating. The country is 
completely lacking in relief and character. The 
eye glides, as it were, over infinite spaces which 
lose themselves on the horizon, and seeing no 
landmark, one is overcome as with a vague 
feeling of unrest. 

History has been even more severe upon the 
Russian people than nature. Russia has been, 
during long centuries, exposed to the inroads 
and predatory incursions of the nomadic tribes 
of Asia. The last invasion of the Tartars of 
Crimea into Russia in Europe took place in the 
second half of the eighteenth century. Up to 
comparatively recent times, the Russian people 
have lived under an entire sense of insecurity 
and constant apprehension. To the invasions 
of the nomads is added another terrible enemy 
of the Russian, — fire. Russia has almost no 
stone, but possesses on the contrary immense 
forests. Naturally, most of the dwellings there 

166 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

have been built of wood. With wood, con- 
flagrations are inevitable, and this plague 
destroys fifty million dollars' worth of property 
every year. Naturally, the country villages 
suffer most, and as there personal property is 
rarely insured, it will be seen that it is the poor- 
est class of the population which is the most 
cruelly affected. 

The fact that the Russian people have this 
constant sensation of international insecurity 
has been the means of driving it to granting so 
large a measure of authority to the central 
government. As the officials have not been 
slow to abuse this power, the Russian people 
have been obliged to submit to innumerable 
vexations. Add to this, serfdom, which was 
introduced in 1596, and which has been the 
cause of the most horrible injustice and abuse. 
In consequence of these and many other cir- 
cumstances, which it would be impossible for 
me to set forth here, the Russian people has 
in truth been one of the most unfortunate upon 

167 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

the face of the earth. History has stamped it 
with a large share of melancholy, combined 
with a profoimd resignation, and with a fatalism 
which is manifested in a thousand different 
ways. The Russian, at times, allows his life 
to glide along just at it happens, without even 
making an effort to react against his sad 
destiny. He seems to be constantly asking 
himself, ''What is the use?" — to be constantly 
consoling himself with the reflection that 
''such is the inevitable order of things." On 
the other hand, when he makes up his mind 
to act, his fatalism causes him to have great 
faith in his lucky star. The "go ahead" of the 
Americans has its counterpart in the Russian 
"avos."i 
It is said that fatalism conduces to acquies- 

0) ''Avos" is an adverb which exists in no other 
language. It corresponds to the French expression "k 
la grace de Dieu." More literally it means ''perhaps"! 
The "Quien sabe" of the Spanish is an analogous 
expression. "Perhaps it will succeed; let us risk it!" 
is the complete meaning of the word "avos." 

168 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

cence. This is not always true, for that it 
sometimes provokes to action, we must admit. 
Together with evidences of an extreme conser- 
vatism, the Russian people give also at times 
proofs of an endless spirit of adventure, so to 
speak. The occupation of Siberia is one of the 
best examples of this. Single individuals have, 
during more than three centuries, been in the 
habit of venturing into this region, and have 
been stopped only on reaching the polar ice and 
the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The occupa- 
tion of the Russian Far East has been much 
more difficult than that of the American Far 
West, if only for the reason that the greater 
part of it was undertaken in the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries, before the advent of 
steam and telegraphy. 

It is true, then, that melancholy and fatalism 
are characteristic traits of the Russian people, 
who certainly cannot be ranged among the 
cheerful nations of the earth. The Russian 
has also, however, times of mad exuberance, 

169 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

when he abandons himself entirely to pleasure. 
At such times the inequality of his character 
is apparent in its greatest extent. 

There may be observed among the Russian 
people a large element of generosity. The 
Russians are fond of saying that the national 
mind is singularly free from all niggardly ele- 
ments. Exceptions are doubtless in evidence 
here and there; some are to be found who are 
very economical, and there are even misers, 
but that is not the dominant type of the 
nation. In the inmiense majority of the cases, 
the Russian is hospitable, and thinks nothing 
of the expense when it is a question of his own 
amusement, or that of others. A great many 
Russians, too, live beyond their means, and 
are in constant pecuniary embarrassments. 
And generosity in money affairs is duplicated 
by a universal generosity in personal relations. 
The Russian is generally very tolerant in social 
intercourse. He is lenient in judging the con- 
duct of others, and easilv overlooks violations 

170 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

of morality committed by his associates. Aus- 
terity has but a small place in his conception 
of things. Many foreigners, the English above 
all, are amazed at the tolerance which reigns in 
Russia with regard to social affairs. Society 
exercises but a feeble restraint upon the indi- 
vidual, and permits him to live as seems best 
to himself. Whether a person goes to church 
every Sunday or not, is something about which 
people trouble themselves very little in Russia. 
One might say that to compensate for their 
lack of political liberty the Russians allow 
themselves a very large share of social liberty. 
Thanks to the good nature and tolerance of 
the nation, social intercourse is marked by a 
spirit of great cordiality among the Russians. 
Among their equals, they call each other by 
their Christian names, accompanied by that of 
the father, with a termination which shows the 
affiliation, as, for example, Alexander Nicolae- 
vitch (Alexander, son of Nicholas). This cus- 
tom lends great simplicity to the intercourse 

171 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 



between individuals, for it is almost invariably 
used even between people of different hierarch- 
ical rank. Thus, in society, for instance, 
between officers and generals, when off duty. 
The appellations which are used in dealing with 
the common people are also very caressing: 
"batiouchka" (httle father), '^goloubtchik'' 
(little pigeon), etc., etc. 

In general, a certain democratic equality 
pervades the intercourse between classes even 
of a very different social status. There are, 
however, unfortunate exceptions to this. Many 
Russians belonging to the former generation 
have not yet given up the custom of addressing 
the common people with ^Hhee'^ and "thou,'' 
though this remnant of former lack of courtesy 
shows, happily, an increasing tendency to dis- 
appear. 

Having discussed their good qualities, I must 
now indicate some of the defects which are very 
frequent among the Russians. They are usually 
very careless, both in their dress, and more par- 

172 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

ticularly in their business affairs. They have 
little of the systematic temperament. They 
are also very prolix, and have no more idea how 
to introduce order into a statement of their 
ideas than into the management of their house- 
holds. The Russians also have rather an 
indifferent idea of punctuality^ and do not yet 
appreciate the value of time, for themselves, 
nor, imhappily, for others. Neither is their 
good faith very extraordinary, and in economic 
relations it is often necessary to take many 
legal precautions when dealing with them. 
"Time is money," and '^Honesty is the best 
policy" are proverbs which have not as yet 
received a very general application in Russia. 
It must not be supposed, however, that the 
level of moralit}^ in business affairs is at all like 
that to be foimd in Spain. Certainly not ! One 
may even point out some sufficiently conspicu- 
ous features of honesty. Thus, private indi- 
viduals, in making payments, often give rolls 
of gold wrapped in paper. These are usually 

173 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

taken without being opened, and it is verj'- 

rare that there is any cheating. This is no 

longer true, however, of cheques. These are 

carefully verified by the banks, before being 

paid. 

IV. Intellect. 

We pass now to the domain of thought, 
which is the proper sphere of a national psy- 
chology. I shall dwell somewhat longer upon 
this; I shall speak of both philosophy and 
religion, but only briefly, of course, as com- 
ports with the limits of this article. 

Beginning with philosophy, I shall observe, 
in the first place, that Russia has produced no 
great original philosophical system, like that of 
Descartes, of Leibnitz, of Spinoza, or Hegel. 
Doubtless the absence of the liberty of the 
press has in a certain measure contributed to 
this result. A Russian book, in which it was 
said that Jesus was merely the son of Joseph, 
a carpenter at Nazareth, would not be suffered 
to pass by the censor. It will be understood 

174 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

that under such conditions as these, it would 
be somewhat difficult to produce a complete 
system of philosophy, to state one^s ideas with- 
out reserve, and with the purpose of saying 
only what one believed to be true. The fact, 
however, should be taken into consideration 
that Descartes, vSpinoza, Leibnitz, and Voltaire 
wrote at a time when censorship was hardly 
more tolerant than it is in Russia to-day. In 
reality, researches which are purely abstract 
into the domain of psychology or metaphysics, 
receive a sufficiently wide toleration in the 
empire of the Czars. Besides, if a Russian 
author were unable to have his philosophical 
works printed in his own country, there would 
have been nothing to prevent his having it 
done in a foreign one. 

The absence of great philosophical systems 
may be easily explained, moreover, in other 
ways. Russian thought began to mature in 
the second half of the nineteenth century. But 
at that time the construction of great philo- 

175 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

sophical systems had been, so to speak, given up. 
The last great system of Europe, — ^that of evo- 
lution, — formulated by Herbert Spencer, is 
rather a systemization of the sciences, in accord- 
ance with a general plan, than a philosophical 
construction in the true acceptation of the 
term. 

In any case, whether owing to the influence 
of obstacles of a political nature, or that the 
historical era was not propitious, it is still true 
that Russia has produced no national philo- 
sophical synthesis. There is, as yet, no system 
which may be called the purely Russian philoso- 
phy. It is sufficiently difficult even to discover 
which of the great systems of Western Europe 
is really most highly esteemed in Russia, and 
possesses the greatest nimaber of adherents. 
Heine said that the real philosophy of Germany 
was Pantheism. We should be quite at a loss 
to formulate any such proposition in regard to 
Russia. Without contrasting doctrines as op- 
posed to each other, such as Deism and Panthe- 

176 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

ism, one would find it very difficult to say 
whether the Russian mind is more mystical 
or positivist. A great number of observers, 
especially foreigners, would incline without 
hesitation to the theory of mysticism. The 
Russian mind seems to them to have something 
about it, the outlines of which are indefinite 
and not to be distinguished from the mystical. 
This is the case, above all, in politics, as I 
shall have occasion to show later. To say, 
however, that mysticism is the most pro- 
nounced, or even the wholly predominant trait 
of the Russian mind, would not be absolutely 
true. There is in it, also, very strong current 
not only of realism, but even of positivism. A 
large number of Russians regard metaphysical 
and mystical abstractions with a contempt as 
profound as it is unfeigned. When statistics 
are taken of the blonds and brunettes among 
the Russians, it is seen that fifty-one in a hun- 
dred have dark hair, and forty-nine in a hun- 
dred have light hair. If statistics of the Rus- 

177 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

sian mind could be taken, it would perhaps be 
found, also, that out of one hundred individu- 
als forty-nine were mystics, and fifty-one posi- 
tivists. But, of course, such a table of statis- 
tics is out of the question. We must turn, 
then, to the publications and teachings of phi- 
losophy. 

Of what has been wTitten we must, of course, 
notice the different periods. Toward 1840, 
Russia was in great part Hegelian. Later, 
toward 1860, there was a violent outbreak of 
Materialism. Biichner and Moleschott enjoyed 
there an enormous prestige. A constellation 
of Russian publicists, with Pisemski at the 
head, threw themselves with ardor into the 
Materialistic movement, putting the greatest 
amount of fervor into undermining the ancient 
idols. It was, to a certain extent, from this 
intellectual tendency that Nihilism sprang. 
When, after the assassination of Alexander II., 
Nihilism again subsided, it seemed as if Russian 
thought turned away from great speculations. 

178 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 



For more than twenty years Russia has seemed 
to live without a philosophy. Herbert Spen- 
cer's theory of evolution has gained some adher- 
ents in Russia, as well as some of the other 
systems, but without penetrating as deeply into 
their minds as the Materialism of Biichner and 
Moleschott. 

No remarkable original work, consecrated to 
philosophy, has appeared in recent years, in 
Russia. Tolstoi, after having written very 
remarkable novels, has published different 
articles on religion, in which he has been led 
to consider certain philosophical questions; 
but he has done so only in passing, without 
devoting any great amount of attention to them. 

What is there in store for the future? After 
the lull and languor which have fallen upon 
Russian thought, at the present time, what may 
be expected to happen? Let me venture an 
hypothesis which I admit in advance to be a 
purely personal intuition. It seems to me that 
Monism will be the future philosophy of Russia. 

179 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

This doctrine appears to me to be the one 
which will be most probably accepted by all 
other countries, and, I think, it will end by 
conquering Russia also. 

If, after the philosophy, I am asked what is 
the religion of the Russians, I shall be even 
more at a loss for a reply. 

It may be said, in the first place, that there 
are almost as many religions in Russia as there 
are ethnical groups. In the Baltic provinces 
and in Finland, Protestantism prevails. Poland 
is Catholic. In the ancient principality of 
Lithuania, (the western Russia of the present) 
the nobility and the upper middle class are 
Catholics, the peasants in the country districts 
orthodox.^ In the south there are the Mussul- 
mans in Crimea, in the east Mussulmans again, 
on the banks of the Volga. Add to this four 

(}) You know that this is the name by which that 
branch of the Christian Church, which in the fifth and 
sixth centuries separated itself from Rome, is called; 
the Greek Church of the East, denominated schismatic 
by the Catholics. 

180 



WHE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

or five million Israelites, scattered throughout 
the western provinces of the empire, and Protes- 
tants again on the banks of the Volga, recruits 
from the German colonies. 

Officially all great Russians are orthodox. 
Russia is still unhappily a confessional state 
in every sense of the word, and suffers the 
imfortunate consequences thereof. The laws 
are made to uphold orthodoxy. Above all, 
the Sovereign and his family must be orthodox. 
The state protects this form of religion by a set 
of laws, which practically abolish liberty of 
conscience in the Empire of the Czars. Reply- 
ing to a petition which had been addressed to 
him in favor of toleration by an English society, 
Mr. Pobedonostzef, the procurator of the Holy 
Synod,^ replied that religious toleration was the 

(0 The Russian Church is administered by a superior 
council of three archbishops nominated by the Emperor. 
The Emperor has, besides, a delegate in this council, 
who is the procurator of the Synod. In reality all the 
power in administrative affairs belongs to the procura- 
tor. It is said that the Emperor is pope in Russia. 
If it is meant by that that the Emperor interferes in 

ISl 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

fundamental rule of the Russian Empire. In 
making this reply, he was evidently plajdng 
upon words. It is true that Catholics, Mus- 
sulmans, and Israelites are authorized to prac- 
tice their forms of worship in Russia. But 
any person who tries to convert a member of 
the Orthodox Church from his faith, even in the 
interest of another Christian profession, is 
liable to exile in Siberia. If the conversion 
be in the interest of a non-Christian religion, 
it is forced labor for eight or ten years. Tol- 
eration must be interpreted in a very narrow 
sense to be understood in the merely passive 
way in which M. Pobedonostzef understands it. 
Religious liberty consists in recognizing the 

dogmatic questions, nothing is more untrue. Never 
has the Emperor of Russia shown any intention of 
modifying one iota of the canons of the Church or of 
the ritual. But, as regards the administration of the 
Church, this is indisputably in the hands of the Em- 
peror, The nomination of the bishops cannot be made 
without his consent. Owing to this power he is able 
to remove any ecclesiastical dignitary who shows the 
slightest inclination toward independence. 

182 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

sacred and inviolable right of the individual to 
preach what seems to him to be the truth. 

Russia is, at the present moment, then, an 
orthodox confessional state, just as England was 
formerly an Anglican confessional state. 

Let us see, now, what position is held in Russia 
by this orthodoxy, which the government takes 
under such excessive protection. 

I do not think it will be paradoxical to affirm 
that orthodoxy is the religion of a very small 
number of the Great Russians. This is what 
I mean. Greek Christianity has been preached 
in Russia since the tenth century. And not- 
withstanding the long period which has since 
elapsed, it may be boldly asserted that it has 
not yet penetrated into the conscience of the 
whole Russian people; that is, to no greater 
degree than has Catholicism into the conscience 
of some of the Western nations, like the Italians, 
for example. Out of one thousand Russians, 
eight or nine himdred (counting the women also) 
would not know how to recite, even mechani- 

183 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 



cally, the Nicene creed. If the individuals 
here referred to were asked in what they 
beUeved, their reply would be but little sugges- 
tive of Christianity. Of the one hundred 
Russians out of the one thousand who might 
know the Nicene creed, there would be, perhaps, 
barely ten who would understand its literal 
meaning, and one, perhaps, who would under- 
stand its doctrinal meaning. But, three quar- 
ters of the time, those who thus understand it 
entirely believe no longer therein. 

In reality, Christianity is merely a veneer in 
Russia. It has not as yet penetrated to the 
consciences of the lower classes, and it is already 
given up by the upper classes of the nation. 
Conscientious Christianity is the portion of a 
very small minority belonging to the middle 
class and the inferior nobility. 

But we know how little important is dogma 
in religion. What man ardently seeks in a 
faith is, first, a protector and then that special 
and exalted emotion called religious sentiment. 

184 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

The more unhappy a people is, the less they can 
obtain justice here below, the more do they 
appeal to Heaven for it. We have said before 
that the Russian people was but poorly pro- 
vided in the matter of happiness. They live 
in a severe climate, which permits of little 
indolence and little of the dolce far niente. 
On the other hand, much of Russia is but 
moderately fertile. The Russian people is no 
better off with regard to politics. The nation 
has pr.actically no resource from the arbitrari- 
ness and exactions of officials, who take both 
their time and their money. It is natural that 
this people should feel more than any other the 
need of having recourse to divine protection. 
They address themselves to God, to Jesus 
Christ, to the Virgin, and to the Saints. Hence 
the great amount of devotion to be observed 
in Russia, the pilgrimages, the worship of 
miraculous images, the crowds of people who 
flock to the churches. 
On the other hand, adoration is the act 

185 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

which satisfies the necessity for religious exal- 
tation inherent in the human soul. The Rus- 
sians give themselves up more ardently to 
exterior forms of worship than do the French, 
the English, or the Americans. This comes, 
it seems to me, from the fact that its civiliza- 
tion being less advanced, the only means of 
satisfying its emotional needs which it possesses, 
is religious worship. But these forms of wor- 
ship have upon them a purely hypnotic effect. 
The Russian people understand almost nothing 
of what the priest is saying during Mass. They 
probably do not know even that the orthodox 
Mass is a commemoration, symbolical of the 
sacrifice made by the Son of God to redeem 
mankind. The Russian priests make every 
effort to give the parts of the Mass which are 
read in a totally incomprehensible manner. 
They are perfectly right in this, for if the words 
of the service were clearly understood they 
would appeal directly to the intelligence, and 
would not produce their intended effect, namely, 

186 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

a purely sentimental suggestion. The ortho- 
dox Mass is singularly ritualistic. It is no liv- 
ing condition, but is congealed within forms 
which have endured for centuries. The East- 
ern Church sustains the principle that what is 
true cannot change. Thus she modifies in no 
particular, either her form of worship or her 
dogmas. Preaching is disappearing more and 
more in the Russian Church. Sermons are 
given only on rare occasions. There are two 
reasons for this. First, because preaching has 
very little object, when it is asserted beforehand 
that there is not an iota of anything to change 
in the traditions of the past. Jesus, on the con- 
trary, it is true, modified or obliterated that 
which had been '^said to them of old time,'' 
by his own ^'I say imto you,'' and it was just 
to maintain this new doctrine, which had not 
been said to them of old time, that Jesus 
preached his sermons. If it had not been for 
that we would have had no reason for speaking. 
The second circumstance which has caused 

187 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

preaching to be given up by the Russian church 
is the distrust of the government. The priest 
who wishes to deUver a sermon must first write 
it, and then submit it to the approval of his 
bishop. Then only may he read it in church. 
But he is forbidden to say anything more than 
what he has put down in his notes; he may 
not improvise, or let himself go, imder the 
inspiration of the moment, and speak freely. 
One may imagine that, under such circum- 
stances, very few priests in Russia care to sub- 
mit to the drudgery of delivering sermons, 
and when they do decide to do so, the faithful 
listen to them with the most profound weari- 
ness. First, because they are generally deliv- 
ered in a cold, monotonous tone, and because, 
too, nine-tenths of the time they are utterly 
meaningless. The absence of liberty has killed 
the eloquence of the pulpit in Russia. 

We may make still another observation which 
will show how little Christianity has entered 
into the Russian soul. For the nine centuries 

188 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

during which they have been Christians, the 
Russians have not introduced one atom of hfe 
into orthodoxy. Look at France and CathoU- 
cism. During the Middle Ages, and in modern 
times, France has repeatedly been a leader of 
Catholic thought. The University of Paris has, 
at different times, possessed the most remark- 
able theologians of Western Christianity. 
There has been nothing like this in Russia. 
There, they have accepted the Byzantine ritual 
without change. The Russians have confined 
their pride to interpreting the Greek texts 
with the most complete and servile literalness. 
The Russian Church has not, in its nine cen- 
turies of existence, given to the world either a 
great theologian, or a great doctor of the faith, 
or a saint who is at all remarkable or out of the 
ordinary, or a celebrated missionary, or even 
a great preacher. The only new element which 
the genius of the Russian people has introduced 
into the mummified body of the Orthodox 
Church is music. There, they have been crea- 

189 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

tive, and wonderfully creative. The celebrated 
musician, Berlioz after hearing Mass sung by 
the choir of the cathedral in St. Petersburg, 
cried out, '^I do not know how they sing in 
Paradise, but it seems to me that it cannot be 
very much better than this.'' The music of 
the Russian Church, which developed especially 
at the close of the eighteenth and beginning 
of the nineteenth century, forms an entirely 
original school; it derives inspiration from no 
other, and its grandem* is at times as wonderful 
as its originality. The Russian Church allows 
no instrument to be used in its service; not 
even the most divine instrument of man's inven- 
tion, — the organ. The entire Mass is thus sung 
by choirs composed entirely of men, in which 
little boys take the soprano and contralto 
parts. 

Is the Russian people, then, essentially reli- 
gious or free thinking? Foreigners would all 
reply with one voice, ''It is religious; it is even 
the most religious of the nations of Europe," 

190 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

Certainly, to judge by appearances (the only 
thing by which a stranger can judge, since he 
must look on the outside only), the Russian 
people are very religious, for it is prodigal of 
its proof of devotion. But there are many 
signs, too, which indicate their complete indif- 
ference in matters of religion. You must 
know, first, that in Russia the Church alone 
holds the records of the civil State, and that 
she alone can dispense certain sacraments 
which are of the greatest civil and political , 
importance. There is no marriage in Russia 
other than the religious one. Consequently, 
there is no other way of contracting a legal 
marriage than by going to church. Baptism 
is also of enormous importance. It alone can 
establish the affiliation which transmits heredi- 
tary rights, civil as well as political. In Russia 
the citizens are divided into several different 
social classes (peasants, artisans, merchants, 
nobles, etc.), whose privileges are far from 
being equal. There are, besides, the ^'non- 
191 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

Christians"^ who are there deprived of a great 
niunber of rights. 

Since the certificate of baptism constitutes 
the sole act of the civil state, its importance 
may be readily understood. A Russian be- 
longing to a family which is officially orthodox 
may be in vain the most liberal thinker in 
the world; it would be impossible for him to 
neglect having his child christened, for without 
that, it would not be considered legitimate. 

The Russian clergy are not paid by the 
State. The expense would be beyond its 
means. There are nearly three hundred and 
twenty-five thousand parishes in Russia. Now, if 
each had a single priest, and he were given 
but five hundred dollars a year, it would neces- 
sitate imder this head alone an annual expen- 
diture of one hundred and sixty-two million 
dollars, which would be about a third of the 

(i) This name denotes, above all, the unfortunate 
Israelites, who, in these recent years of reaction have 
been reduced to mediaeval being considered almost 
Pariahs. 

192 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

ordinary Russian budget. For their support 
the priests in the country have had assigned 
to them two sources of revenue : a plot of ground, 
which they may cultivate on their own account, 
and sometimes with their own hands, and 
the traffic in sacraments. The priest seeks, 
naturally, the greatest amomit of profit pos- 
sible. He sometimes exacts for christenings, 
and particularly for marriages, fees which 
the peasants are not always able to pay. 
Bargaining begins. There are cases where 
young people are not able to be married for 
weeks and months, because they are unable 
to pay the sum demanded by the priest for 
the religious ceremony. It will be understood 
that such circumstances result in sufficiently 
unpleasant relations between the pastor and 
his flock. And, notwithstanding these exac- 
tions, the Russian priest remains generally 
very poor, for the reason that the sheep which 
he may shear have unfortunately but very 
little wool. The Russian priest is ill-informed 

193 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

and rarely of much elevation of characters- 
he is married, and has many family cares; 
and by reason of all this, inspires but little 
respect in the faithful. By some he is detested 
as one who is continually taking advantage 
of them, and by others he is little respected 
on account of an obvious lack of moral supe- 
riority. The relations between the clergy and 
the faithful have thus no deep cordiality or 
sympathy in Russia. 

Then, too, the churches are usually poor 
and plain. They are not open until the hour 
for service, and then are filled with people. 
The Russian (man or woman) in his hours 
of moral distress and anguish may not enter a 
church to collect himself and to pray. There 
are found none of those corners, isolated and 
at the same time inspiring, which are to be 
met with in so many of the edifices of Western 
Europe. On the other hand, it never occurs 
to any one to take counsel with the priest 
in moments of difficulty, because the orthodox 

194 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

clergy has so little prestige, and is so little 
respected. The priests, on their side, never 
go into the different families to speak words 
of kindness and consolation. 

In consequence of this series of circum- 
stances, the Russian is but moderately in 
sympathy with his national Church. There 
are millions of peasants in the country who 
might pass as utterly indifferent in matters 
of religion. Nor is the Russian woman more 
religious than the man. This is no more true 
of the lower than of the upper classes. It is 
never in Russia, for example, as it often is 
in France or Italy, where the husbands may 
be free thinkers, and the wives very devout, 
and even bigoted. The priest (contrary to 
what is seen in Catholic countries) obtains 
no power through the influence of women; 
in general his influence in society amounts to 
almost nothing. 

There may be observed in Russia, even 
among the common people, the most complete 

195 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

irreverence in regard to holy things. The 
manner in which the peasants speak of the 
service and the priests borders at times upon 
the most biting sarcasm and the most absolute 
indifference. 

But, nevertheless, a thousand facts bear 
witness that a deep religious need torments 
the Russian soul, even to its inmost recesses. 
This is proved, first, by the multiplying of 
religious sects. Among the Catholics in France, 
Austria, and Italy there are no longer heretics 
or "non-conformists.''^ The last Western sect, 
Old Catholicism, has exhibited a very moderate 
amount of vitality. It died out in a few years. 
German Protestantism, too, seems to be irrev- 
ocably fixed within the limits established at 

(0 There is another source of Russian non-confor- 
mity, and that is, the ''Old Believers," or rather, the 
"Old Ritualists." In the seventeenth century the 
patriarch Nicon caused the text of the liturgical books 
which had been altered by the copyists, to be revised 
and corrected. Numerous persons would not adopt the 
corrections, and separated themselves from the oflBLcial 
church under the name of the "Old Believers." 

196 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 



TTiiTMniT^nm 



the time of the Reformation. No breath of 
anything new has come to break through them. 
The Orthodox Church in Russia, as a theo- 
logical and dogmatic institution, is utterly 
dead. It confines itself to its forms of worship 
and the ritual. We might say that it was 
supported in a certain measure by right of 
succession, being preserved for economic and 
political reasons. The portion of the Russian 
population which has the deepest religious 
needs finds nothing to satisfy them in the 
established Church, which has been for cen- 
turies congealed within cold and hieratic 
forms. The aspirations of the Russian people, 
then, in matters of religion, rise far beyond 
the established Church, and are often in hos- 
tility to it. When the priest of a village is 
too eager for gain, when his conduct proves 
a source of scandal, when revolt and indig- 
nation are excited against him, peasants then 
separate from their pastor and throw them- 
selves into the sects of non-conformists, as 

197 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

happened in England at the time of the Refor- 
mation. Some one appears^ and begins to 
preach new doctrines based upon his own 
private interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. 
It is thus that innumerable sects have been 
formed in Russia. It would take too long to 
enumerate them here. They have all taken 
as a foundation the Old and New Testaments; 
but later, in the course of their development, 
they have reached the greatest extremes. 
Some have returned to the forms of the prim- 
itive Church, and have no clergy. Others have 
become reconciled to Protestantism. Others 
still, by the strangest aberrations, have ended in 
practices which are monstrous and unnatural.^ 

Whatever may be the aberrations of these 
sects, the intensity of their religious life is 
very great. One finds, too, among their ad- 
herents all the admirable qualities of the 

(0 Those, for example, of the "Skoptzi," a sect which 
is founded on a literal interpretation of the twelfth 
verse in the nineteenth chapter of Saint Matthew's 
Gospel, 

198 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

neophyte; an extraordinary sense of honesty, 
unlimited devotion, and a spirit of sacrifice 
amounting to martyrdom. A number of 
Russian sectarians has recently arrived in 
America. They are the ^'Doukhobory" (wrest- 
lers with the spirit). They have preferred to 
leave their country rather than submit to the 
military service, which they believe contrary 
to the teachings of the Bible. 

The Russian non-conformists are the honor 
and glory of their country. If anything could 
show the depth of power, of seriousness, of 
nobility, and of perseverence which exists in 
the Russian people, it would be these wonder- 
ful men. Unhappily the present government, 
misled by an immoderate love of external 
and bureaucratic symmetry, far from under- 
standing that the non-conformists are the salt 
of the Russian earth, persecutes them in a 
thousand ways, which are sometimes as cruel 
as they are ineffectual. 

Thus, after maintaining that the Russian 

199 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

people is one of the most indifferent in matters 
of religion, I proceed to make exactly the 
opposite assertion. And this contradiction 
does not spring from my own mind; it is in 
the facts themselves. Among an immense 
people like the Russians, all kinds are to be 
met with; sceptics as well as apostles, full of 
faith and enthusiasm. 

V. Politics. 

From religion to politics the transition is 
not so abrupt in Russia as in the countries 
which are non-confessional. As the United 
States of America is preeminently the repre- 
sentative of the republican form of government, 
Russia is the recognized representative, so 
to speak, of the autocratic. Thus, the political 
writers of almost every country have founded 
upon this fact a series of far-fetched opinions, 
and have built thereon veritable sociological 
romances. They have advanced the phenom- 
enon of heredity, of the innate inclination 

200 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

of the race, and a thousand other factors, 
equally imaginary, to prove that the Russian 
people have been moved to absolute mon- 
archy ad eternum. They have piled demon- 
stration upon demonstration to show that 
the only form of government conceivable by 
the Russian mind is autocracy, and that any 
other people in the world might pass from 
absolute monarchy to more liberal institutions. 
The Russian people, however, can never do 
so, as they allege, because of a certain peculiar 
mentality of their own. 

This assertion will not survive for a moment 
an examination of the facts, if one take the 
trouble to look at these closely and will not? 
content himself with indulging in mere in- 
vective. 

In the first place, autocracy is relatively 
a recent fact in Russia. The ancient Russian 
populations lived under the administrative 
of the clan. They then passed under the 
government of the city. The political authority 

201 



THE RUSSIAN POEPLE 

of a certain region was concentrated in a cen- 
tral town (oppidum), which was usually fortified. 
The organization of the Russian city was 
republican. A popular assembly (the ''veche"), 
whose conferences were rather tumultuous, 
gave a general approval to the measures which 
were proposed to it by a kind of senate. The 
Russian ''veche^' recalls, in many ways, the 
primitive assemblies of the Roman people 
in the Forum. 

In the ninth century Norman adventurers 
tempted their fortimes in Russia, as they had 
preivousl}' done in England, France, and Italy. 
One of these Scandinavian bands, commanded 
by a chief named Rurik, founded the first 
monarchy in Russia. The monarchial prin- 
ciple is, then, a foreign importation into the 
country. All the supposed predispositions 
of the Russian ''race'' for this form of gov- 
ernment are thus purely imaginary. Rurik, 
after having installed himself at Novgorod 
(which was, in his time, a republic with quite 

202 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

a flourishing trade), pursued his conquests. 
He descended as far as the Lower Dnieper, 
and made for himself a vast Empire. That 
is to say, he levied tribute upon different 
Russian cities. In accordance with the Ger- 
manic conception of that time, government 
was not looked upon as a public office, but as 
a matter of private ownership. Thus, the 
descendants of Rurik divided up their father's 
possessions as the sons of Louis le Debonnaire 
divided up the Empire of Charlemagne. The 
princes of the house of Rurik received as their 
share different cities, and each created for 
himself a sort of kingdom. But the primitive 
organization of the Russian city was not de- 
stroyed by the Norman invasion. Some of 
the towns succeeded in driving out the descend- 
ants of Rurik, and restored the republican 
form of government. Novgorod retained this 
form until 1480, Pskof imtil 1509. 

Others of the cities kept their princes, but 
without conceding to them absolute power. 

203 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

The relations established between the prince 
and his people are not accurately known to 
us. Thus, in spite of the presence of the princes 
of the house of Rurik, the popular assemblies 
(the "veche'') continued to exist in many of 
the cities. We hear of these assemblies where 
the prince appeared and decisions were made 
in common. In other places the '^veche'' 
disappeared very early. It is probable, then, 
that the relations between the prince and 
his subjects were not very clearly or distinctly 
determined. It appears, also, that the most 
diverse conditions prevailed in the different 
cities, and that very often everything depended 
upon the personal qualities of the reigning 
prince. 

The princes of the house of Rurik disputed 
the heritage of the founder of their dynasty, 
just as the Carlo vingians disputed the heritage 
of Charlemagne. Even as Charles the Bald 
reestablished, at a certain time, the unity of 
the Western Empire, so did several of the 

204 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 



Russian princes reunite a number of prin- 
cipalities, and attempt to restore the unity 
of the Empire of Rurik. But this attempt was 
neither a very determined nor a very perma- 
nent one, and was, moreover, never crowned 
with very lasting success. The only thing 
established in a settled and permanent man- 
ner was the supremacy of the city of Ejef. 
The prince who reigned there was considered 
the head of the family of Rurik, and, as such, 
exercised a sort of hegemony, something after 
the fashion of an honorary presidency. He 
held the title of Grand Prince. The actual 
authority of the Grand Prince over the other 
principalities amounted to practically nothing, 
but his moral authority, if we may so express 
it, did not fail to be sought after by the Russian 
princes, who, for a long time, disputed the sov- 
ereignty of Kief and the title of Grand Prince, 
which accompanied it. The dynasty which 
reigned at Moskow ended later by appropriating 
this title to itself in an exclusive manner. 

205 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

Such was the situation in Russia in the 
twelfth century. She offered the spectacle of 
a series of almost independent principalities, 
with institutions which were badly administered 
but in no sense autocratic. The advent of the 
Mongols occurred, and modified this state of 
affairs. 

The descendants of Rurik never completely 
lost the idea of the imity of their Empire. 
They considered themselves members of one 
body, and felt themselves different from both 
the Asiatic tribes of the East, who were usually 
nomadic, and the settled populations of the 
West (Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, and Swedes) . 
Thus, upon the arrival of the Mongols, the 
princes of the house of Rm'ik joined together 
to withstand them. They made but a feeble 
resistance, however, in consequence of the 
complete absence of any unanimity in their 
institutions. The Russian principalities knew 
not how to defend themselves, and all fell under 
the domination of the Tartars. The Republics 

206 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

of Novgorod and Pskof alone succeeded in pre- 
serving their independence. 

The Mongols did not suppress the Russian 
principalities, but contented themselves with 
levying tribute upon them. But, none the less, 
the Mongol yoke was a very heavy one, because 
very despotic. Security disappeared forever 
for the people of Russia. Delegates from the 
Mongol Khan were continually coming to 
demand the payment of new taxes. The least 
resistance brought down upon them expedi- 
tions which made a merciless use at every point 
of fire and the sword. And, further, bands of 
Mongol marauders constantly overran the coun- 
try, and conducted forays on their own account. 

A universal law of sociology receives its con- 
firmation in the history of Russia. And this 
law is, that the power accorded to the central 
government is the direct result of the political 
insecurity of a country. 

When the Russian populations were oppressed 
by the Mongols, they sought, naturally, the 

207 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

protection of their reigning princes. To them 
they looked to put an end to the incursions of 
the bands of marauders. The power of the 
princes would natui'ally increase from this very 
fact, for they must be furnished with, the means 
of protecting the people, that is, they must 
have a stronger army. 

Among all the Russian princes, those of 
Moscow (in consequence of circmnstances which 
it would take too long to explain here) were 
found to best understand the protection of their 
subjects. Their reputation as faithful protec- 
tors spread throughout the whole of Russia, 
and secured for them both prestige and author- 
ity- 

In the same way that the Germanic princes 
contended with one another over the territories 
in the heart of the Germanic Empire, the 
Russian princes waged war over those in the 
heart of the Empire of the Mongols. The 
princes of Moscow were aided by a series of 
fortunate circiunstances. They made numer- 

208 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

ous conquests, aggrandized their state by dis- 
possessing other princes of the house of Rurik, 
and became the most powerful in Russia. 
Their ambition increased with their power. 
They assumed the title of Grand Princes, and 
claimed again that moral hegemony which 
formerly belonged to the sovereignty of Kief. 
The princes of Moscow had difficulties also 
with their Mongol suzerains, and, as soon as 
they felt themselves sufficiently powerful, 
entered into conflict with them. They engaged 
in a number of battles, and in some were vic- 
torious. 

The Russian people now began to foresee a 
possibility of ridding themselves of the Mongols 
by the hand of the princes of Moscow. They 
saw clearly that without a concentration of all 
the political power of the Russian people the 
removal of the Mongol yoke was impossible. 
They saw, too, that their safety lay in the 
unlimited power of the Grand Prince who 
reigned at Moscow. Thus, naturally, anything 

209 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

which increased his authority was looked upon 
as beneficial, while all that tended to weaken 
it was considered injurious, and therefore sub- 
versive. 

Thus was the idea of autocracy implanted in 
Great Russia. It was not, as has been too 
repeatedly asserted, the result of an idiosyn- 
crasy of the Russian ^^race." It was, quite 
simply, the result of certain historical circum- 
stances. The law that political concentration 
is the direct result of insecurity of frontier may 
be demonstrated reversely by England, the 
exact opposite of Russia as to political insti- 
tutions. The one is the most constitutional 
nation in Europe, the other the most auto- 
cratic. But England is, too, the country which 
is best protected by nature; Russia is the least 
so. Complete security for Russian territory 
was obtained only in 1881, after the defeat of 
the Tekke-Turcomans. Thus, only for nine- 
teen years have the Russians enjoyed the invio- 
lability of their political frontier, which is a 

210 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

natural possession of the English, thanks to 
their insular position. Liberty was early estab- 
lished in Great Britain for the reason that there 
has never been an}'- necessity for conceding 
great military power to the king. The same 
may be said of the United States of America. 
It is their isolated situation, beyond the reach 
of Em'opean aggression, which has had a large 
share in enabling them to assume that admir- 
able political decentralization and that personal 
liberty, which have contributed, in such large 
measure, to their prosperity. France is another 
proof of what I am saying. Her continental 
situation offers less security than that of Eng- 
land; thus, her organization has necessarily 
remained for a longer time autocratic. 

The present situation in Russia is, so to 
speak, diametrically opposed to what it was 
in the past. After living for centuries imder 
the shadow of continual Asiatic invasions, it is 
Russia herself who now menaces her barbarous 
neighbors on her eastern frontiers. Russia 

211 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

enjoys to-day an external security greater than 
that of ahnost any other European power. In 
case of a general war, Austria, Germany, and 
Italy might have to fight on two sides of their 
borders, Russia on but one. Russia cannot be 
surrounded. For this reason, and, thanks to 
the vast extent of her territory, she is, so to 
speak, unconquerable. 

Since Russia now enjoys a security greater 
than that of her neighbors, extreme concen- 
tration of power is no longer necessary. It 
would seem as if the principle of autocracy must 
lose much of its prestige in the eyes of the 
cultured classes. And it is so to a certain 
extent. But in human affairs the suhlata causa, 
tollitur effectus is not to be instantaneously 
applied. After an institution has lost its 
^'raison d'etre," it may still, through force of 
tradition and inertia, retain much of its power. 

Such is the present situation in Russia. 
There are already many persons in the country 
who appreciate the great advantage of popular 

212 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 



representation, and look eagerly for its coming. 
But it is well to recognize that a large number 
of Russians still persist, eternally as it were, 
in political conceptions of a totally different 
kind. We are not speaking of the state officials, 
who are afraid of losing their places, should 
popular control be established. These individ- 
uals are out of the discussion. They oppose 
the establishment of a parliament, not as a 
matter of principle (for in their inner con- 
sciences they recognize its advantages), but 
from the promptings of a purely selfish interest. 
The high officials who are in this category are, 
it is true, verj^ influential, but I am of the 
opinion that their desires would not prevail, 
were it not that a large number of individuals 
among the upper class cling to autocracy on 
principle, and not from any personal advantages 
to be derived therefrom. 

Every society nourishes within its breast 
some individuals with antisocial tendencies. It 
is these persons who conscientiously put their 

213 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

own interests above those of their country. 
But these individuals cannot be continuously 
the most powerful in the nation, for if this 
were so, the forces impelling toward dissolution 
would preponderate over the forces contrib- 
uting to cohesion, and society would be 
dissolved. 

We must thus recognize that if the autocratic 
principle still survives in Russia, it is because 
a large nimiber of R,ussians consider it bene- 
ficial for their country as a whole. 

The sources whence this idea proceeds are 
many, but they are the result, one and all, 
of historical circimistances. 

The Russian mind has followed the same 
course of evolution as that of other countries. 
There may be observed here, to a certain 
extent, two of the three states of Auguste 
Comte, the theological phase and the meta- 
physical phase. This is what has happened. 
While the other nations of Western Europe had 
already received the positive phase, toward the 

214 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

end oi the eighteenth century, Russia has not, 
as yet, even in our day, attained to this. And, 
again, this does not proceed in any way from 
an innate quaUty of the Russian race, but from 
circumstances purely material and social. Rus- 
sia is very poor, and its population is widely 
scattered. For this reason, as well as many 
others, w^hich I caimot now enumerate, educa- 
tion has spread very slowly. The number of 
those who are illiterate reaches the scandalous 
figure of seventy-eight out of a hundred. The 
higher education is much less widespread than 
the primary. Briefly, the positive method of 
reasoning is sufficiently rare in Russia, as yet, 
and the theological and metaphysical methods 
reign paramount. A large number of Russians 
are still imbued with a great deal of mysticism, 
and, above all, alas, with much intellectual 
indefiniteness. Their faculty for analysis is 
very feeble. They have, as yet, but a poor 
idea of how to class social phenomena, and to 
give them those clear outlines which are char- 

215 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

acteristic of the science of positivism. The 
Russians bring into the State the ideas of the 
family, and make of them an ideal which is 
pohtically hazy and incapable of realization. 
This ideal may be formulated thus: a sovereign, 
father of his subjects, governing well in conse- 
quence of his affection for them, and, in conse- 
quence of a consciousness of his duty as an 
autocratic ruler, towering above all the rest. 
The Russian mystics have a profound contempt 
for a parliament. They call this a low and 
vulgar institution, where takes place a series 
of compromises and bargaining between the 
different interests at stake. Now this sort of 
transaction is degrading. A goverimient lowers 
itself when it condescends to such maneuvers. 
The Russian mystics affirm that a government, 
really worthy of the name, should consider the 
interest of the mass of the people. Only an 
autocrat can accomplish this mission, because 
he alone has no need to enter into a compromise 
with any one. Bargaining and the do ut des 

216 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

offer no temptation to him. He can accom- 
plish the good of all without sacrificing the 
interest of one class to that of another. 

Natm'ally, when the mind of the mystic rises 
to such dizzy heights, he loses all sense of 
reality. The ultimate result of such vagaries 
can but be an entire weakening of the society 
in which they are produced. It is enough, 
indeed, to place, for one moment, our foot upon 
the solid rock of positive facts, to witness the 
immediate disappearance of all such mirages. 
The sovereign cannot accomplish everything by 
himself. He must delegate his powers to an 
immense staff of officials. How is it possible for 
him to control their actions, so as to be assured 
that they conform to his benevolent and 
paternal designs? It is evident that the con- 
trol of some of the officials by others is abso- 
lutely ineffectual. For control of any kind to 
be effective it must be exercised by disinter- 
ested persons, those outside, by individuals, 
that is, who are not officials. On the other 

217 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

hand, the mystics never take the pains to study 
accurately natural phenomena. They do not 
see things as they really are. From the moment 
when we apply ourselves to the study of nature 
in a positive spirit, we understand that each 
little atom in the universe is in a constant 
dynamic state. It seems to be trying to attract 
everything to itself. It is just the same with 
society; each individual is in the dynamic state 
in regard to his fellow-creatures. He endeavors 
to compass his own best welfare. It is from 
the union of such efforts, in opposition, some 
to the others, that social institutions are born. 
The Russian mystics make a very great mistake 
when they imagine that parliamentary com- 
promises are a proof of moral debasement. 
They are, on the contrary, but checks and 
counter checks, by means of which a social 
equilibrium, that is to say, the greatest possible 
respect for the rights of the individual is main- 
tained. 
M. Pobedonostzef, Procurator of the Holy 

218 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

Synod, ^ has recently published a series of 
articles which have been translated into French 
under the title of ' ' Questions religieuses, sociales 
et politiques/'^ In them he gives expression 
to the opinion that if all the representatives 
of the people were saints, the parliamentary 
regime would be the very best kind of all. But 
as the representatives of the people are usually 
of a more than doubtful morahty, the parlia- 
mentary regime is the worst. Here is an excel- 
lent example of the reasoning of the mystic. 
How is it that M. Pobedonostzef does not see 
that the argument may be turned directly 
against absolute monarchy? If all the officials 
appointed by the sovereign were perfection 
itself, absolute monarchy would be the best 
of all forms of government. Is it possible 

{}) The Procurator of the Holy Synod (a sort of 
minister of church worship) is one of the highest digni- 
taries in the Russian Empire. Furthermore, M. 
Pobedonostzef possessed great personal influence during 
the reign of Alexander II., which, in a certain measure, 
he still retains. 

(2) Published at Paris by Baudry in 1897. 

219 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

that M. Podebonostzef would have us beheve 
that it is sufficient for an official to be appointed 
by an absolute sovereign to ensure his being 
immediately clothed with all the virtues, and 
that the Holy Spirit would descend upon him, 
as it descended formerly upon the apostles? 
Truly, with ideas like these it would be impos- 
sible to create a positive and realistic political 
system, for if miracles be admitted, the whole 
scaffolding of the social science falls as does 
a castle of cards. 

Many Russians have minds which are clouded 
and visionary, and for the reason that monarchy, 
with its right divine, is more to their liking 
than the concrete and realistic forms of a parlia- 
mentary monarchy. 

Another factor which has contributed toward 
maintaining the prestige of autocracy in Russia 
is Panslavism. 

From the seventeenth century, but partic- 
ularly since the reign of Peter I., the sciences, 
letters, philosophy, and art of Western Europe 

220 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

have made their way into Russia. These 
same branches of mental activity existed also, 
it is true, in the ancient Muscovite Empire, 
but in a rudimentary form, in sad contrast, 
indeed, to that which emanated from Europe. 
Russia was as if hypnotized. She lived for 
more than a century and a half under the com- 
plete fascination of the West. It seemed to 
the Russians that never would they be able, 
not merely to surpass, but even to equal their 
models. Naturally, no human being, and no 
society, can live while constantly sacrificing 
its personality. In reality, an abdication of 
this kind must lead, in the long run, either to a 
species of mental death (in ordinary terms to 
idiocy) or else the vital forces must react, and 
come to acknowledge this personality. Now, 
the Russian people has far too large a share 
of individuality for the reaction to fail to set 
in. It occurred in the first half of the nine- 
teenth century under the name of Panslavism. 
The too great servility of Russian thought to 

221 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

that of the West brought about, by a natural 
propensity, an excessive reaction of the national 
pride. The Panslavists maintained that Russia 
was entirely different from, and superior to, 
the other nations of Eiu"ope. But when it 
became necessary to come forth from the 
clouds and to indicate the positive points in 
which this difference consisted, the Panslavists 
fell back principally upon these two facts, 
communal property and autocracy. In certain 
regions of Russia, the parish lands are, at specified 
times, divided among the members of the 
rural community. The Panslavists proceeded 
to affirm that individual ownership of land, 
as was the rule in the other countries of Europe, 
opens the door to pauperism. It divides society 
into two great classes, clearly differentiated, 
the non-owners, devoted to incurable poverty, 
and the owners, who live by taking advantage 
of the wretched people. The fundamental 
principle of such an organization is, then, unjust 
sovereignty. And, because it is unjust, this 

222 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

organization is imperfect and odious. There 
is nothing of this kind in Russia, say the Pan- 
slavists. In consequence of the communal 
divisions, every Russian is necessarily a land 
owner. A proletariat becomes forever impos- 
sible. Contrary to that of the West, the funda- 
mental basis of Russian society is justice. As 
the Panslavists, at first, could discover no 
distribution of land among the Western nations, 
they loudly proclaimed that Russia alone pos- 
sessed this admirable organization, and that, 
consequently, she was superior to all the others. 
It is hardly necessary to state that these 
arrogant delusions will not for a moment bear 
the light of criticism. The communal owner- 
ship of land is not the exclusive privilege of 
Russia. It is an archaic and imperfect form 
of landed proprietorship which has existed every- 
where, at less advanced epochs of social evolu- 
tion. Furthermore, all Russians do not form 
part of a rural community. There are thus 
proletarians in Russia. And finally the mere 

223 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

fact of possessing the usufruct of a hectare of 
poorly cultivated land (and communal land 
will always be so) will hardly insure the com- 
forts of life to an entire family. And, in 
truth, in spite of this far-famed communal 
ownership, the Russian peasant is the poorest 
and most miserable of all Europe. 

But the Panslavists did not perceive all 
these objections, and proclaimed that communal 
proprietorship placed the Russian people upon 
a lofty pedestal of justice and brotherhood. 

Beside communal ownership, the Panslavists 
discovered another superiority belonging to 
Russia. This was, that the States of Western 
Europe were all founded upon brute force, 
while Russia alone was not. The States of 
the West were established by Germanic warrior 
chiefs who had taken possession of the Roman 
pro^dnces. The Franks founded the kingdom 
of France, the Angles that of England, the 
Visigoths that of Spain, and so on. But 
Russia was not a part of the Roman Empire; 

224 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

she never suffered these great invasions. In 
the ninth century some Swedish adventurers, 
it is true, had come into Russia. But Rurik 
and his companions did not come as conquerors. 
They were invited by the citizens of Novgorod. 

Thus, while the States of Western Europe 
are based upon mihtary conquests, and therefore 
upon \4olence and brute force, the Russian 
State is founded upon the free will of its citizens, 
therefore upon justice, upon a purely noble 
and fraternal basis. 

It may be understood that a military chief 
who had forcibly annexed rebellious populations 
could not govern except through fear, and in 
his own interest. This warrior chief never 
troubled himself about the well-being of his 
subjects. He looked upon them as a flock, to 
be shorn to the utmost, as a simple means of 
procuring for himself the greatest amount of 
wealth. Such a political foundation for a 
State being given, there was no possibility of 
cordial relations being established between 

225 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 



the sovereign and his subjects. The greatest 
antagonism must reign between the monarch 
and his people. It is from this very antag- 
onism, according to the Panslavists, that parUa- 
mentary governments have arisen. The 
populations being too much oppressed revolted. 
They exacted guarantees from their rulers, 
and these guarantees were what were called 
constitutional charters. 

Quite different was the evolution of Russia, 
according to the Panslavists. Since the foun- 
dation of her common law is not brutal and 
violent conquest, no antagonism can exist 
between the sovereign and his subjects. The 
monarchs of Western Europe desired solely 
their own good and not that of their subjects. 
But a Russian autocrat who would not care 
for the good of his people is inconceivable, say 
the Panslavists. A Russian sovereign who 
should put his own interests above those of 
his subjects, would be a contradiction which 
is in itself quite impossible. 

226 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 



It is through this kind of argument that the 
Panslavists have estabhshed, anew, a capital 
distinction between Russia and the other nations. 
These other reprobate nations have sovereigns 
who desire the unhappiness of their subjects, 
and who consequently cannot love them. 
Russia, on the contrary, is the righteous nation 
par excellence. Her sovereign wishes only 
the welfare of his subjects; he loves them, he 
is their father. To establish the rights of the 
citizens against the sovereign is of some use 
when the sovereign wishes evil to his subjects, 
but to establish them when he desires their 
good is useless, and is to little purpose. On 
the other hand, to prevent the sovereign from 
compassing the good of his subjects is to desire 
ill to the nation; it is to create tendencies which 
are antisocial. Consequently, any attempt 
having for its object the limiting of the power 
of the monarch, being antisocial, is criminal 
and subversive. And, consequently, auto- 
cracy is the ''Holy Ark'' of the Russian nation; 

227 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

it is the institution which differentiates it entirely 
from the other nations of the West, and which 
places it anew upon an elevated pedestal of 
greatness and justice. 

Thus reason the Panslavists. It is with 
this as with the division of communal land; 
it is hardly necessary to demonstrate that 
their arguments are not founded upon a 
knowledge of history and social science. In 
the first place, Rurik was as wholly a warrior 
chief as Robert Guiscard. The foundation 
of the Scandinavian domination in Russia is 
the same as that of the Norman rule in Neustria 
or at Naples. The princes of Moscow after- 
wards acquired the other Russian principalities 
by fire and sword, exactly as the kings of 
France acquired their possessions. The foun- 
dation of the Russian State is as much, then, 
violent and brutal conquest as that of the 
Western States. And, further, the Russian 
State is composed of a large number of hetero- 
geneous ethnical elements, who have not all 

228 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

even yet received the right of citizenship. If, 
then, the sovereign of Russia is the father 
of his subjects, it is well to recognize that 
his affection is very unequally bestowed upon 
his children. 

Little as the theories of the Panslavists 
may savor of positivism, they have, in large 
measure, contributed toward increasing the 
prestige of the autocratic idea in Russia. 

Another fact which contributes to the same 
result is the democratic tendency of the Russian 
people. 

Russia is a vast plain, nearly destitute of 
any beautiful material for building purposes. 
The castle, the seignioral dwelling, erected 
upon a hill which is visible from a great distance, 
built from material capable of resisting the 
wear of centuries, and exhibiting architectural 
beauties which are the pride of the district, — 
this kind of dwelling, it has not been possible 
to build in Russia. The castles on the banks 
of the Rhine, even when in ruins, preserve 

229 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

still a powerful and picturesque individuality, 
which renders them celebrated for miles around. 
The name of the Count of Rheinfels, pronoimced 
in former times in the presence of a peasant 
of Nassau, would produce in his mind the 
idea of a very powerful noble, because the 
magnificent Castle of Rheinfels, of which this 
count was the owner, was known and admired 
throughout the entire region. In England, 
the seignioral dwellings of some of the nobility 
are among the most remarkable of the architec- 
tural monuments of the coimtry, and their 
owners share in the celebrity of their 
castles. 

It has never been, and is not yet, so in Russia. 
The homes of the boyars were formerly of wood 
or brick, and ahnost always little remarkable 
in point of architecture. Then, too, the life 
of the nobility was not conspicuous, and made 
but small impression upon the people. 

On the other hand, the law of primogeniture 
has never been implanted in Russia. 

230 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

No matter how illustrious a family, from the 
single fact that the title passed to all the male 
descendants, it might be borne by some indiv- 
iduals whose condition of fortune was of the 
most moderate. The title, for the same reason, 
lost its prestige. 

It must be said, further, that the source of 
the Russian nobility is not always of the purest. 
It originates, for the most part, in administrative 
or military offices. The lowest of the peasants 
may enter the service of the State; if he attain 
a certain grade in the administrative hierarchy, 
he acquires hereditary nobility. But state 
officials receive but a moderate amount of 
esteem, admiration, and sympathy; and for 
a very good reason. This administrative 
nobility enjoys but a small amount of prestige. 
Add, further, that the nobles in Russia had 
for a long time been in the enjoyment of a 
privilege as useless as it was odious. They 
alone had the right to own serfs. They abused 
this right in a revolting manner, and very 

231 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

naturally, therefore, were not much loved or 
respected by the masses of the people. 

Thus the Russian nobility had no traits which 
brought them out in a certain powerful relief 
from the other classes of society; they had 
neither prestige nor popularity, and for these 
reasons the Russian people has become demo- 
cratic, and upon this democratic sentiment the 
few attempts in the annals of Russian history 
to limit absolute power have foundered. They 
proceeded from a small number of dignitaries 
in high places and a select number of enlight- 
ened people. But these chosen ones were not 
upheld by their immediate associates. The 
greater part of the governing class have ranged 
themselves behind the Emperor, and have sus- 
tained his unlimited power through fear of an 
oligarchical government vested in a small group 
of nobles. 

These are the circumstances, which I have 
so rapidly outlined, that have moulded the 
autocratic tendencies, and even now uphold 

232 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

them. It may be seen, therefore, that such 
tendencies are the consequence of historical 
circumstances, and that they have nothing of 
the quahties which it is pretended are innate 
in the Russian ''race." 

Let us now consider the value of Russia as 
^wov ttoXltikov. We are forced to recognize, 
in truth, that in this respect her value is 
but of a moderate kind. Apart from the 
Emperor Peter I., Russia has produced almost 
no remarkable political personality. The great- 
er part of her statesmen have been conserva- 
tives. Very few among them have been in the 
least progressive, or have had broad minds, 
together with that wonderful eagle-eyed pene- 
tration which sees clearly the aspirations and 
needs of the times, which dares even boldly 
project itself into the future. The larger num- 
ber of Russian statesmen have been of a timid 
spirit, filled with narrow prejudices, forever 
taken up with an archaic ideal which history 
in its majestic onward march has already 

233 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

thrown aside among the ruins and disregarded 
possessions of the past. And, further, imitating 
in this the dull and monotonous plains of their 
country, Russian statesmen have been of little 
distinction, and have shown no personality to 
speak of. And if they have sometimes come 
out from their framework of mediocrity, it has 
been, for the most part, alas, through an exag- 
geration of their tyranny and extravagance. 

From another point of view, however, it is 
not to be denied that the Russians possess 
some very valuable political qualities. One of 
these is a strong spirit of subordination, which 
causes them, the greater part of the time, to 
put the interests of the State above their own. 
There is barely an example in Russian history 
where the governor of a province has rebelled 
against the central authority of the State, and 
has endeavored to cut out. to form for himself 
from the general mass a personal domain. 
Russia has never offered the sad example of the 
egotistic and anarchical opinions which so 

234 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

frequently occur in the history of Poland. The 
spirit of strict discipline with which the govern- 
ing classes in Russia are inibued has undoubtedly 
contributed, in great measure, to establish their 
dominion over so vast an extent of territory. 

But to be conquerors is not everything, those 
that have been conquered must be governed. 
Now, the Russians have been much less skilful 
in the latter than in the former task, in conse- 
quence of some of their good qualities it may 
be, but, above all, because of one of their great- 
est defects. Russia has but a faint conception 
of law and justice. In this she is the exact 
opposite of the Roman people. It is this main 
defect which renders Russian domination so 
odious and insupportable to the people who 
must submit to it. A thousand circumstances 
concur to produce this unfortunate result. I 
have already said that the Russian is usually 
open-hearted and very generous. Rapacity, 
sordid avarice, dull and vindictive cruelty, enter 
but slightly into his character. He is hospit- 

235 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

able, not supercilious^ much given to sympathy, 
and very coiu'teous in his social relations. 
Because of all this, he coalesces easily with 
the foreign populations coming under his rule. 
It is because of these qualities, for example, 
that the Russians have better understood how 
to keep their supremacy over their Mussulman 
subjects in Tm'kestan than the English over 
theirs of India. But the Russian character is 
very uneven. And, further, his political concep- 
tions are, as yet, indefinite, mystical, impreg- 
nated with paternalism. If under certain cir- 
cumstances a conflict of interests arises between 
him and the people under his domination, he 
breaks out in sudden passion, and indulges in 
measures of extreme brutality. These measures 
are, then, all the more surprising to the popula- 
tion, because they are so accustomed to indul- 
gence and good nature. Then, when the mo- 
ment of anger has passed, the Russian unbends, 
comes to himself again, and without always 
repealing his imrighteous acts, he allows them 

236 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

quietly to fall into desuetude. A regime of 
this kind is of all orders the most precarious for 
those governed, and consequently most intoler- 
able. The populations mider Russian subjec- 
tion, being never able to foresee from what quar- 
ter, in the minds of their masters, the wind 
may blow, live in continual anxiety and con- 
stant apprehension. Beside the fact that this 
is in the highest degree disagreeable for the 
governed, it is, also, in the highest degree con- 
trary to the true interests of the governors. In 
fact, with no feeling of security for the morrow, 
no one dare undertake those business enterprises 
of a more extended character which are the basis 
of the material prosperity of a country. 

The Russian State has been established by 
violence, by strokes of individual authority. 
Thence proceeds the illusion that the renewal 
of these brutal attempts is the Alpha and 
Omega of political wisdom. Very many Rus- 
sians, even among the most cultured classes, 
have an idea that it would be impossible to 

237 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

insure general prosperity unless governments 
were to take, at certain times, measures 
described in Russia as administrative, that is to 
say, measures which are illegal. This idea, which 
is securely anchored in the Russian mind, shows 
how refractory it still is as to any perception 
of true justice, and to what extent the Russian 
is still, after all his efforts at civilization, a 
''political animal,'^ and of a very ordinary 
quality. 1 

VI. Present State. 

After having glanced rapidly over the more 
or less permanent traits of the Russian nation, 
I should like, before finishing this hasty sketch, 
to add a few words upon the situation of the 
moment. 

First of all, with reference to economics, 
Russia is in a fair way to accomplish an impor- 
tant transformation. She is passing from the 
purely agricultural stage into the industrial. 

(i) What is taking place in Finland perfectly 
sustains my opinion. 

238 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

England is the country in which this phase 
has attained its highest development. Out of 
one hundred Englishmen seventy-one live in 
cities and twenty-nine in the country. In 
Russia the proportion is more than the reverse 
of this : fifteen persons live in cities and eighty- 
five in the country districts. But in conse- 
quence of the strides which manufacturing has 
made, the population of the cities continues to 
increase. A working class is beginning to be 
formed. The '^ bourgeoisie" is growing. These 
movements are already plainly visible, but they 
are being brought about slowly. In conse- 
quence of a thousand impediments produced 
by bureaucratic centralization, everything in 
Russia advances at a snail's pace. Things have 
been set going, however, and, as Russia pos- 
sesses vast mineral wealth (still very largely 
unexplored), manufactures cannot fail, sooner 
or later, to rise to great importance. 

Another important event in Russian history 
is the establishment of a network of railways, 

239 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

which from this time forward are destined to 
extend over the entire country. Doubtless the 
Russian network is still modest, indeed, com- 
pared to that of America/ but such as it is, it 
has already produced a fairly immeasurable 
revolution. Russia was formerly an amorphous 
country. Some of her regions were practically 
inaccessible, because of their immense distance 
from the sea. On the other hand, during a 
certain number of weeks in the Spring and 
Autumn, commimication ceased almost entirely. 
All this is a thing of the past, thanks to the 
railroads. These transport men and goods at 
one and the same time. Through this means a 
constant and continually flowing current of 
ideas is established between the different parts 
of Russia, and has reimited them as with an 
organic bond. 

In spite of the frightful obstacles which over- 

(i) There were in Russia, July 1, 1900, fifty-four 
thousand six hundred kilometres of railroads, and in 
the United States, January 1, 1899, three hundred 
thousand six hundred and thirty-six kilometres. 

240 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

whelm them, the press and pubUshing trade are 
making great progress in Russia. Russian 
editions do not yield much in point of elegance 
to those of Western Europe. Here is another 
sign of the times; very expensive publications 
have begun to have a financial value in Russia. 
A Leipzig house, combined with another in 
St. Petersburg, is now publishing an imimense 
encyclopaedia, after the model of the '^Ency- 
clopaedia Britannica." More than a million 
dollars have been invested in this enterprise, 
which, however, is very profitable. Twenty or 
thirty years ago, no such thing as this would 
have been possible. I cannot enlarge upon 
these matters which are not exactly in line with 
my subject. I mention them only to show that 
economic power (which is the foundation of the 
development of the mind) is increasing in 
Russia, even though slowly. 

What is the present tendency of the Russian 
mind? In order to answer this question we 
must go back a few years. 

241 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

The shameful defeats suffered in the Crimea, 
in 1854 and 1855, had shown, with the most 
absolute clearness, how fatal had been the 
ultra-conservative policy of the Emperor Nich- 
olas I. A powerful liberal reaction set in under 
Alexander II. A series of beneficent reforms 
was the result: the suppression of serfdom, in 
1861; the reformation of the courts of justice 
and the introduction of the jury system, in 
1864; provincial self-government for the prov- 
inces, in 1865, and the suppression of preliminary 
censure at St. Petersburg and Moscow in the 
same year. 

These reforms created a new spirit. Toward 
1872, the Russian youth were at the boiling 
point. They desired to enter upon a sort of 
crusade to free the peasants from their ignorance. 
Youthful apostles went abroad over the country, 
preaching among the workmen in the towns 
theories that were liberal and more or less 
subversive. If the Russian government had 
been endowed, at that time, with even a par- 

242 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

tially clear sense of justice, it would have 
understood that to preach what seems to him 
the truth is the primordial right of every human 
creature. On the other hand, if the Russian 
government had possessed the most elementary 
principles of sociology, it would have seen at 
once that the Nihilist apostleship had no sort 
of chance of amounting to anything serious. 
Indeed, to modify the political ideas of seventy 
millions of illiterate men would require an 
enormous amount of money and immense 
efforts, protracted for generations. What could 
be accomplished by some thousands, or rather 
by some hundreds, of young Nihilists, spread 
about through the country districts of Russia? 
Their propaganda would quickly disappear in 
the vast ocean of ignorance around them, with- 
out leaving further trace than would a small 
brook in the Atlantic. The government had 
only to shut its eyes. The youthful enthusiasts 
would have been freed from their social illu- 
sions; and in a very little while they would 

243 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

have abandoned their premature attempts. 
This is just what did happen in many cases. 
Many young preachers became very quickly 
disgusted, and gave up their apostleship among 
the peasants, seeing that it could lead to nothing. 
Unhappily, the Russian government had no 
sufficient amount of liberalism, nor of foresight. 
The reactionists who surrounded the noble and 
generous Sovereign, the great-hearted Alex- 
ander II., began to frighten him, and advised 
measures of merciless severity against the 
Nihilists. The young persons who were preach- 
ing in the country districts were arrested, put 
in prison, subjected to the most rigorous treat- 
ment, and, in consequence of sentences rendered 
behind closed doors by special tribimals that 
offered no guarantee of impartiality and equity, 
were transported to Siberia. In the face of 
such persecutions as these the Nihilists resisted. 
They transformed themselves into a secret 
society and opposed to the severities of the 
government, assassinations and outrages even 

244 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

more daring. Holding the Emperor Alexander 
II. responsible for the policy urged upon him 
by his advisers, they became enraged against 
him personally, and made repeated attempts to 
kill him. 

In the meanwhile, the Turkish War broke out. 
The Russian arm}^ suffered great privations. 
Nevertheless, in time, they triumphed, and 
arrived under the walls of Constantinople. In 
Februar}^, 1878, Russia was breathlessly await- 
ing the accomplishment of her destiny and the 
crowning of her historical mission. For an 
immense majority of the Russians the war of 
1877 had all the effect of a new crusade. A 
glorious hope had taken supreme possession of 
their hearts. Every moment the capture of 
Constantinople was looked for and the end of 
the Mussulman power on our continent. It 
would seem as if the inauspicious work, accom- 
plished in 1453 by Mahomet the Conqueror, 
were about to be imdone by the hand of Holy 
Russia. It seemed as if Europe were about to 

245 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

enter into possession of that eastern basin of 
the Mediterranean which had formerly been her 
most splendid domain. 

Alas, how cruelly deceived were the Russian 
people, in maintaining these glorious expecta- 
tions! Constantinople was not occupied, the 
Mussulmans were not driven out of Europe, and 
even the independence of Bulgaria was effected 
in but a limited and narrow way. 

Discontent followed these misconceptions. 
The plots of the Nihilists were renewed, and 
aroused further exasperation on every side. 
The more nervous and severe the government 
appeared, the more did the terrorist party 
redouble its audacity. 

Alexander II. was a monarch who was too 
enlightened, whose heart was too tender, not to 
feel that the mere civil administration is not 
everything in the life of a great nation. Toward 
the beginning of the year 1881, Russia was living 
in a state of extraordinary tension. Each day 
a change in the regime was expected. A con- 

246 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

stitution was the universal theme; and it was 
even said that one had been already drawn up, 
and that it would be promulgated before long. 

Unhappily the plots of the terrorists did not 
blow over. The narrow-minded and stupid 
fanatics who led the movement appeared to 
be utterly blinded. They neither saw nor heard 
anything of what was passing aroimd them, and 
pursued their vengeance against such a Sover- 
eign as Alexander II. As ill-fortune would 
have it, the odious crime of the 13th of March, 
1881, was successful. 

This great crime was naturally succeeded by 
a fiu'ious political reaction, which lasted with- 
out interruption throughout the reign of Alex- 
ander III., and bore the acknowledged seal of 
a narrow Muscovite nationalism and of an ortho- 
dox clericalism even more narrow still. The 
institutions of Alexander II. were nearly all 
revised in the direction of reaction. Self- 
government in the towns and provinces was 
limited, the independence of the jury percepti- 

247 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

bly restricted. The unfortunate Israelites were 
deprived of most of their privileges; they were 
excluded from the municipal councils of the 
cities; their admittance into the middle and 
primary schools, and to the committees, was 
restricted. They were driven out en masse from 
certain parts of the Empire, in which, thanks 
to the toleration which reigned under Alexander 
II., they had been able to establish themselves. 
The severities of the censorship were redoubled. 
Many of the most influential journals were sup- 
pressed. Military law was established in the 
large Russian to^\Tis which gave privileges to 
the provincial governors and the prefects of 
customs which were often abused. 

While, about 1873, the apostle who went 
about the coimtry carrying good news to the 
people was the most striking character in 
Russian life, under Alexander III., it was the 
''careerist" who became the characteristic type. 
This type, which, in France, Alphonse Daudet 
has named the ''Struggle for Life," was repre- 

248 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

sented by the young official, with no kind of 
moral aspiration, Tvith no sort of ideal, seeking 
to obtain, by every imaginable means, the 
greatest possible number of material advantages. 
Men of this type multiplied as rapidly as weeds. 
A leaden gloom fell upon Russian society. 
People hved, from day to day, in a sad, monoto- 
nous fashion, without having even a glimpse of 
anything better. 

Revolutionary plots grew less frequent, little 
by little, and finally ceased entirely, at least as 
far as the public knowledge extended. In any 
case, there were no more astounding political 
assassinations. This was one of the singularly 
happy features of the reign of Alexander HI. 
Let us hope that the progressive party in 
Russia has already perceived how odious and 
foolish and disadvantageous it is to resort to 
brute force. 

Alexander III. being now dead, the hopes of 
the liberals strongly revived. They thought 
that the reactionary party would, on the acces- 

249 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

sion of Nicholas II., be broken up, as had hap- 
pened after the death of Nicholas I. Nothing 
of the kind occurred. The men who had sur- 
rounded Alexander III. remained in power dur- 
ing the reign of his son, and the greater part 
of them are in power now. The course of poli- 
tical opinion did not change. Some reaction- 
ary measures were still taken. Nationalism in 
a narrow sense continued to flourish. None of 
the exceptional measures which had been 
enacted against the unhappy Israelites were 
repealed. Thus, apparently, everything is going 
on since the death of Alexander III., just as 
it did during his life. But, however, it is not 
quite that! We are conscious, in spite of 
everything, that the force of the reaction is 
blunted. It is not as yet receding; but it is, 
however, no longer advancing. 

Russia is at the turning-point. Russian 
thought has become a stagnant pool. The 
liberals have not to a marked degree the courage 
of their convictions, nor do the reactionaries 

250 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

dare engage in any too great violence. AVe live 
from day to day, and no one knows whither one 
is tending. It seems even as if people were 
delighted not to go anywhere. Some legislative 
measm"es of very slight importance have been 
enacted. But no one seems to have the cour- 
age to attack the great political problems, ripe 
for so many years. Life formulates its imperi- 
ous demands, but the government, in its inabil- 
ity to act, seems to wish to stop up its ears and 
close its eyes. Russia continues to linger along 
in superannuated and nearly vanished institu- 
tions, hardly worthy of the eighteenth century, 
and continues to be an archaic state. The 
breath of no powerful and generous idea seems 
to animate this country. Not a single man, 
no great character, no conspicuous personality, 
appears to captivate the crowd and to vibrate 
in the hearts. The novel is reduced to a super- 
ficial impressionism, which paints daily life 
exactly as it is, without in the least attempting 
to interpret it. It would seem as if the novel- 

251 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

ists are chiefly ambitious to reduce themselves 
to the level of photographic machines, and to 
carefully avoid all traces of an independent 
thought. 

At this present moment, Russian society 
seems to be without aspiration, and with no 
ideal of any kind. There is not a single great 
question about which intellectual war is waged. 
The most sacred principles count but sceptics 
and unbelievers. It would seem as if the 
chosen few of Russian society (among whom, 
in other times, such powerful currents of 
thought have been produced) had lost the fac- 
ulty of feeling the beating of their own heart. 
An atmosphere, dull and gray, pervades the 
whole. There is absolute stagnation. 

For how long will this state of things last? 
Ten, twenty, thirty years? Who will be the 
deliverer? Who will come to drag Russian 
society from its dull and lifeless state? Alas, 
no one can answer this question. 

One event alone has been as a ray of light on 

252 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

this dark and gloomy sky, — the circular of the 
24th of August, 1898, and the conference at 
The Hague, which was the result of it. Unhap- 
pily, neither has this event succeeded in rousing 
Russian society from its torpor. Many people 
in Russia expressed themselves on the subject 
of The Hague conference with a pessimism both 
scornful and ironical. Furthermore, the noble 
attempt of the Emperor Nicholas 11. has hardly 
passed out of the domain of theory. Russia 
has not disarmed a single regiment; quite the 
contrary. This year the number of recruits 
called to active service is greater than last. 
And Russia has also experienced a recrudes- 
cence in naval affairs, a more foolish madness 
even than militarism. The construction of 
ironclads has been resumed with great ardor. 
Russia is at present going through one of the 
dullest and most spiritless periods of her his- 
tory. The Russian people have, I am sure, too 
much exuberance of vital power not to react 
eventually. Some day the nation will resume 

253 



THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 

its forward march. Of that there can be no 
shadow of doubt. But just now, Russia seems 
as if motionless, hesitating and irresolute 
between progress and reaction. 



254 



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